This Is NOT a Drill. A New Steamboat Willie HORROR MOVIE Is Coming and You Can Already Watch the Trailer ?

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E! Mickey Mouse!

The time has officially come for Disney to no longer own the rights to an original version of the famous mouse. As of January 1st, 2024, Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie has officially become public domain. Oh, the horror! Literally, horror is what has befallen Steamboat Willie.

Now that the original form of Mickey Mouse has entered the public domain, anyone has freedom to use that content. Meaning, Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie can be used in movies, shows, art, and merchandise by anyone, without paying a penny to Disney.

We are two days into 2024 and a new movie and video game have already been announced to be released featuring the original Mickey Mouse as Steamboat Willie.

As much as we were all probably hoping for other companies to take the character and create new, fun, family-friendly cartoons, that is NOT what has happened with these new features. A brand new horror comedy film, Mickey’s Mouse Trap, is set to release sometime this year, potentially in March, according to BBC.

According to the producer of the movie, they “wanted the polar opposite of what exists.” The movie takes place at a young woman’s surprise birthday party in an amusement arcade, when things take a turn for the worse (as would be expected). A knife-wielding murderer in a Mickey costume comes to terrorize the party.

“People need to not take it too seriously, we made a ridiculously fun movie,” said Simon Phillips, who wrote and produced the movie. He is also the man behind the mask in the film. This drastically different Mickey concept is no surprise since we saw Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey came out the same year Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain.

But a Mickey horror movie is not all we have to look forward to this ear (insert eye roll here). A new horror game is also coming out featuring our favorite mouse! Nightmare Forge Games will be releasing Infestation 88 on PC. It will be a 1-4-player survival-horror co-op game in which you are trying to stay alive.

According to IGN, the developers of the game describe it as “In the year 1988, what was thought to be an outbreak of rodents in various locations morphed into something far more sinister.” Well, Mickey certainly looks sinister in the new game.

While Mickey as Steamboat Willie has officially become available to anyone anywhere for free, Disney still holds separate trademarks on Mickey as a brand identifier and corporate mascot. The company also says they continue to own the more recent versions of Mickey under copyright.

Disney has stated, “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.”

We’ll be interested to see how many other variations of content come out featuring Mickey now that he officially entered the public domain. Hopefully, it’s not all horror! But can we really say we’re surprised by this?

In the meantime, keep following AllEars!

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