- "Mickey Mouse" is the face of Disney
- His 'Steamboat Willie' version has gone to the public domain
- THIS horror film will use him as the main character
The fact is, "Mickey" has defined many generations as the ultimate cartoon poster child. Being the main face of the Disney corporation has made him one of the most recognizable fictional faces of all time. And now, it's getting an horrific makeover for the big screen...
A mouse with a menace!
As the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve, Disney's copyright on the iconic character's earliest renditions expired, and filmmakers pounced on the opportunity to reinvent the cheerful cartoon into a spine-chilling slasher!
"We wanted the polar opposite of what exists," declared the audacious producer behind the film. Simon Phillips, the mastermind who also dons the "Mickey" mask in the movie, has crafted a tale of terror that's bound to leave audiences squeaking in fear. "A place for fun, a place for friends, a place for hunting. The mouse is out," teases the trailer in a blood-red font that spells doom.
"People need to not take it too seriously, we made a ridiculously fun movie," said Simon Phillips, who wrote and produce the film and plays the man behind the Mickey mask. Phillips told the BBC that "if you put Mickey into a family movie, you don't cover new ground".
"In order to flip the coin, you have to come up with something that's the polar opposite of what already exists," he said. The film itself does not have a confirmed release date but is expected to be out this March.
Not to be outdone by its big-screen counterpart, the gaming world has also embraced the darker side of "Mickey." Nightmare Forge Games has unveiled 'Infestation 88', a survival horror game that's sure to have players' hearts racing faster than a runaway steamboat. With "Mickey" reimagined as a verminous villain, the game promises thrills, chills, and an infestation of frights!
Public domain power play
On January 1, three early "Mickey Mouse" cartoons entered the public domain in the US, and AI experimenters have wasted no time taking advantage of it.
On Monday, a digital humanities researcher named Pierre-Carl Langlais uploaded an AI model to Hugging Face that has been trained on those public domain cartoons, and anyone can use it to create new still images based on a written prompt.
"More modern versions of 'Mickey' will remain unaffected by the expiration of the 'Steamboat Willie' copyright, and 'Mickey' will continue to play a leading role as a global ambassador for the Walt Disney Company in our storytelling, theme park attractions, and merchandise," a Disney spokesperson said after the release.
"We will, of course, continue to protect our rights in the more modern versions of 'Mickey Mouse' and other works that remain subject to copyright, and we will work to safeguard against consumer confusion caused by unauthorized uses of 'Mickey' and our other iconic characters," the company added.
Thanks to the characters from 'Steamboat Willie' sailing into the public domain, creatives have been quick to capitalize on the newfound freedom. With no permission or cost required, the floodgates have opened for a new era of Mickey-inspired madness. And while Disney still has a grip on modern Mickey's image, the original 1928 version is now fair game for frights!
And the new film is bound to both shock and inspire.
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An end in sight?
"Mickey Mouse" has already been remixed in certain media, like the TV show 'South Park,' which created an egomaniacal "Mr. Mouse" character who is obsessed with owning everything.
"Mr. Mouse" is an obvious rip off of "Mickey," but this can all be protected under a different subset of copyright law. Under fair use doctrine, some behaviors that might seem like copyright violations are legally permissible if they are transformative or satirical in nature!
And he isn't the first childhood icon to be given a horror makeover. Remember when "Winnie the Pooh" went from cuddly to killer in 'Blood and Honey'?
It seems that when classic characters hit the public domain, they're ripe for a terrifying transformation. And with 'Mickey's Mouse Trap' set to hit screens this March, we're all ears for what's sure to be a mouse-terpiece of mayhem!
