Give the massive box office success of Pirates of the Caribbean, and the fact that Disney has at least three or four other of its famous theme park rides in development as movies (including Guillermo del Toro’s renovation of **The Haunted Mansion), it’s not surprising to learn that the Mouse House is looking to exploit the rest of its most valuable property: The entire Magic Kingdom.
While Ron Moore already semi-scooped them on the idea – pitching a script for Universal which saw Disneyland as the setting for a Night at the Museum-style family adventure – it looks like Disney is going its own way, taking meetings with writers to explore the concept further. And since the company has full access to the iconic characters and locations, that makes a certain amount of sense.
Right now, according to Variety, the project is in quiet development and fairly low on the totem pole, since Disney already has all the separate rides and the likes of Tron Legacy to focus on.
Plus there is the challenge of getting the movie right, and figuring out whether to treat the movie like its version of The Avengers, with separate character films building the world first and re-introducing the likes of Mickey, Donald and co to modern audiences (though given their ubiquitous-ness around the world for years, we doubt the Mouse and the Duck will need that much background-building).
Don’t go looking for this one to make it into cinemas any time soon – but given Disney’s push to get all its brand-ready characters out into all forms of media, we expect it to happen eventually.