Credit: Into Frame ProductionsThe upcoming Mickey Mouse horror film has been described as a “love letter” to The Walt Disney Company.
Announced less than 24 hours after the Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie entered the public domain, a trailer was shared online for Mickey’s Mouse Trap (2024), a film following a 21-year-old trapped inside an arcade with her friends, all of whom are forced to play cat-and-mouse with a murderer in a Steamboat Willie mask.
Of course, the film itself isn’t produced or written by Disney itself. However, its director Jamie Bailey and producer Simon Phillips have insisted that it’s intended as a love letter to the studio.
“We’re big fans of Disney fans in general, so this is just our opportunity to be playful and creative with the character,” Phillips told DisInsider. “And that’s exactly what we did.”
Bailey added: “To be able to take this iconic character that we all grew up with, and place him in a situation where he’s killing people – it has never been done before. have the opportunity to play with this character as an open domain character and do anything we want with him. We’ve seen him as this lovable child character, [but] what’s the polar opposite of the Mickey Mouse that we all know? And it’s a slasher Mickey Mouse, and who doesn’t want to see that?”
Mickey Mouse’s Trap is reportedly ready to go, having been conceptualized and filmed in the summer of 2023. “There were lots of articles saying that Disney was about to lose the copyright on Steamboat Willie [at the beginning of 2024],” said Phillips. “We were very surprised that we were the only ones that sort of worked towards that.”
This isn’t the only horrifying adaptation of Mickey you can expect to see on screens in 2024. A horror video game inspired by Mickey’s bloodiest self – Infestation: Origins – is also due for release later this year through Steam.
How do you feel about seeing Mickey Mouse in a horror situation? Let us know in the comments!