Recently, the copyright for an earlier version of Walt Disney’s animated character Mickey Mouse expired, and a horror movie borrowed from the character Mickey Mouse was released for the first time.
On the 2nd (local time), according to IMDB, an American film source site, a trailer for the horror movie “Mickey’s Mouse Trap” featuring Mickey Mouse characters was released on the 1st.
The movie is about friends organizing a surprise party for the heroine, Alex, who works in an amusement park arcade until late at night on her 21st birthday, but a killer wearing a Mickey Mouse mask appears and plays a game against them.
The trailer video features several scenes from the silent animation Steamboat Willie (1928), in which Mickey Mouse first appeared, and the mask worn by the killer appears in a bizarrely twisted shape, unlike Mickey Mouse’s original face.
“It’s a crazy story about Mickey Mouse from Steamboat Willie killing people,” the production team said in a press release. “We just wanted to have Mickey Mouse and have fun.”
Simon Phillips, a British actor who wrote and produced the film and played the man behind the Mickey Mouse mask, said in an interview with BBC that “putting Mickey in a family film does not open up new horizons. To turn the coin around, you have to figure out what is completely opposite of what already exists.”
The production team hasn’t confirmed the release date yet, but they expected it to be released in March.
Such a movie was able to be made because Disney’s copyright of Steamboat Willie expired as of January 1 this year, allowing anyone to share, reuse and adapt the work freely.
As a result, not only horror movies but also “Infestation 88,” a horror video game that said it was inspired by “Steamboat Willie,” was released on the 1st.
However, foreign media pointed out that Disney still owns the copyright of Mickey Mouse characters produced after the early work “Steamboat Willie,” which could lead to a lawsuit for misusing the characters.
“We will continue to protect our rights to more modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other copyrighted works, and we will work to prevent consumer disruption caused by the unauthorized use of Mickey and other iconic characters,” Disney said in a statement ahead of the expiration of its “Steamboat Willie” copyright.
SALLY
ASIA JOURNAL
