“Camp Rock 3” premieres August 13 on Disney Channel and Disney+, seventeen years after the franchise’s first installment turned the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato into household names. Director Veronica Rodriguez, in an interview ahead of the release, described careful conversations with Lovato, who also serves as an executive producer, over how to bring back her original character without overshadowing the film’s new cast.
Lovato reprises her role as Mitchie Torres, the aspiring singer who anchored the first two films. Rodriguez said the character’s limited screen time was a deliberate choice, one Mitchie herself voices in the movie when she tells her mother the story now belongs to the younger campers. “We wanted them to be ingrained and necessary for the story but also leave enough room and space for the world to fall in love with the new generation,” Rodriguez said of Mitchie and the band Connect 3, played by Joe, Nick and Kevin Jonas.
The film also includes an unbilled appearance from Milo Manheim, known for Disney’s “Zombies” franchise, who plays a songwriting mentor guiding the campers. Manheim’s casting carries its own lineage: he starred alongside “Camp Rock 3” newcomer Malachi Barton in “Zombies 4,” and Rodriguez described the two as friends off-screen.
“Milo passed the Zombies torch to Malachi, and they’re buds,” she said, calling the cameo “a really fun, meaningful” addition. She added that watching Manheim, the Jonas Brothers and Lovato mentor younger cast members on set, including coaching them on handling social media exposure, stood out during production.
The new film picks up as Connect 3 loses its opening act ahead of a reunion tour and returns to Camp Rock searching for a replacement, a premise that pits campers against each other for the coveted slot. The cast of newcomers includes Liamani Segura, Malachi Barton, Lumi Pollack and Sherry Cola, alongside Maria Canals-Barrera, who returns as Mitchie’s mother. Eydie Faye wrote the screenplay, and Tim Federle joins the Jonas Brothers and Lovato among the film’s executive producers.
