Director David Gordon Green Discusses His Disneyland Movie

Earlier this week, it was reported that Halloween Kills director David Gordon Green is attached to direct a movie centered on the creation of Disneyland, Walt Disney’s original theme park. Even Spiliotopoulos, who wrote Disney’s billion-dollar hit live-action Beauty and the Beast remake, is set to write.

While speaking with Collider for Halloween Kills press, David Gordon Green discussed his approach to making a movie based on the Happiest Place on Earth, and to the delight of hardcore Disney fans, not only will Walt Disney play a pivotal role, his number-crunching brother Roy Disney will too:

“It’s about the brotherhood of Walt and Roy Disney and it’s interesting because you see, and even I saw the headline yesterday, I was, wow, that does sound… I was thinking this cool artistic, collaborative brotherhood story. Then you look at it as it’s written and think about the institution that is Disney around this. And you’re, “No, that’s a big story”. But to me, it’s how do these two guys engineer something that became Disneyland.“

He also revealed the Disney+ project has yet to be written but says it will take place throughout several years, meaning through Walt’s initial idea of Disneyland, to development, construction, up to opening day:

“Well, it has yet to be written, so that’s kind of evolving, but it’s basically the creation, the construction of Disneyland. So that’s a several-year project for sure.“

Lastly, the site asked the director if he intends to consider bringing Tom Hanks, a distant relative of Walt Disney, to play the iconic figure, who he played in 2013’s Saving Mr. Banks:

“I think that’s been done. I think I haven’t even gotten that far into to how you embody that character, but I love the story and I love the… I have so many valuable relationships from the people that I’ve worked with, the people that I’ve butted heads with, the people I’ve been inspired by.”

While the project is clearly on David Gordon Green’s mind, it will likely be a few years before we see the movie hit Disney+. Gordon Green still has to film Halloween Ends, which begins production in January. He is also developing a trilogy based on the Exorcist and also working on HBO’s Hellraiser. It wouldn’t be shocking to see additional information on the Disneyland movie revealed during next year’s D23 Expo. Until then, we all have to wait patiently.