2024 is a big year for cinema: Steamboat Willie, the 1928 animated short film that first introduced Mickey Mouse, entered the public domain on January 1. That means Willie’s no longer under copyright, and people can do whatever the hell they want with the character without getting sued. Now we’ve got not one, but two horror films about Steamboat Willie on the way! Yay?
The latest one, The Return of Steamboat Willie, is a film created in the 3D graphics platform Unreal Engine by Fewture Studios.
Now. Okay. You’ll notice that the trailer was put up by IGN. Maybe this dates me, but I still haven’t recovered from when IGN punked us all with its fake Legend of Zelda trailer in 2008. Is this new Steamboat Willie thing real? Is it a real thing that’s actually happening? Fewture Studios does have an Instagram account. It only has one post and 177 followers, but hey, every studio has to start somewhere. Maybe spending eight hours a day on the internet has made me suspicious and jaded, I dunno. I wish I could remember how to just enjoy something.
Anyway, according to Fewture, the plot of The Return of Steamboat Willie will focus on Willie’s quest to get his steamboat back after being locked away for 95 years. Good for him! So what if he has to commit a few murders along the way?
I mentioned that this is the second horror movie based on Steamboat Willie to be announced in the three and a half weeks since it fell out of copyright. The first one is Mickey’s Mouse Trap, a live-action horror flick about some teens who are being hunted down by Willie.
One of the first comments on IGN’s Return of Steamboat Willie trailer put it best: “At this point it’d be more original to make a non-horror adaptation of Steamboat Willie.”
I’m trying to puzzle out why we’re apparently so obsessed with making horror movies out of Disney characters—remember the Winnie the Pooh horror film?—but I’ll confess, I’ve got no solid theories. Maybe it comes from the underlying corporate aggression that’s enabled Disney to hold onto all its copyrights for so long. Maybe, in stark contrast to the most cheerful and cuddly Disney characters we grew up with, the world just feels pretty horrible right now. If Mickey or Pooh were to catch a glimpse of the grim reality the rest of us live in, they’d become irredeemably corrupted. They’re too pure, too innocent. If only they were still protected by the gauzy cocoon of copyright!
Nah, just kidding! I can’t wait to see what all you weirdos out there do with Pluto when he enters the public domain in 2025.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
