In previous years, Disney has lost a few of its original characters such as Bambii, Winnie the Pooh and Steamboat Willie, due to copyright regulations running dry. According to Plumegroup, Disney lost copyright on Mickey Mouse’s earliest rendition, Steamboat Willie, on January 1, 2024. Shortly after they lost the copyright on that version of the famous rodent, multiple horror films and games took to using the visage of Steamboat Willie in their pieces.
With upcoming films and renditions of the characters, Disney has a rising issue of needing to create new characters. The film industry, however, has new toys for the proverbial playpen of Hollywood.
The trend is not new, as one director in particular, Rhys Frake-Waterfield, has already made a living off of new for public-use characters. In 2023, shortly after Winnie the Pooh became accessible to the public domain, Waterfield released “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.” Although the movie was seen as a “flop” with a 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it ended up being a success financially, making $5,227,290 worldwide, according to The Numbers.
The financial success of the first movie allowed Waterfield to begin producing more movies and writing scripts using other Disney characters, such as “Bambi: The Reckoning,” “Pinocchio: Unstrung” and “Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare.” Waterfield is continuing to write new scripts and reimagining nostalgic childhood characters as brutal monsters. By keeping the original names that give the characters fame, Waterfield is able to draw in an audience. This method is financially successful, but it does not benefit Hollywood when movies are being churned out mindlessly.
It took many years for characters such as Steamboat Willie, Winnie The Pooh and Bambii to fall under the public domain because of the Copyright Term Extension Act also known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act. According to Jennifer Jenkins of Duke Law School, Steamboat Willie was meant to hit the public domain back in 1984, serving a 56-year term under the Disney copyright. Disney’s expansion in 1978, however, postponed the public domain date to 2004.
By 1998, Disney was able to delay it once more back to 2024 through the Copyright Term Extension Act. This act allowed Disney to extend the copyright status of Steamboat Willie and permitted them to continue utilizing the law to extend more copyrights on hit characters.
Disney continuing to lose many of its most popular characters to the public domain could mean the introduction of new and exciting characters is required for Disney to remain successful. According to IMDb, most films under the Disney umbrella, including Marvel and Star Wars that will be released in 2025, still utilize Disney’s old characters. Films such as the live-action adaptations of “Lilo and Stitch,” “Snow White” and Pixar remakes such as “Zootopia 2,” are all reusing their hit characters.
Without the creation of new characters, Disney will struggle to have the rights to many popular characters. With the possibility of a lack of popular characters, Disney will come across a row of difficult years where they will desperately need to make new enticing characters to entertain dwindling audiences.
To combat the expected decrease in audience sizes, Disney will need to start creating new films, which they have with the upcoming release of “Elio.” For Disney’s sake, if films such as “Elio” are able to entertain audiences, then they will not have as much fear for profits in later years.
The film industry is up for many new faces but will also witness plenty of old characters being utilized in various films, whether in frightening horror flicks, or thrilling action movies. With a rapidly increasing pool of old Disney characters, there’s no telling what films both good and bad are coming out of Hollywood, but signs point to low quality productions.