Less than 24 hours after Mickey Mouse entered the public domain, a trailer for a horror film featuring the character surfaced online.
Titled Mickey’s Mouse Trap, the film follows a 21-year-old trapped at an amusement arcade with her friends on her birthday, who is forced to play a game of deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a killer donning a Steamboat Willie mask.
The film is by no means associated with or endorsed by Disney. And although it can be interpreted as an attempt to muddy the iconic mouse’s name or representation, its director and producer (and star) both tell The DisInsider that it’s more of a love letter.
In an exclusive interview with The DisInsider, director Jamie Bailey and producer Simon Phillips set the record straight about where the film’s idea came from, whether Disney has any grounds to sue them, what fans can expect, and so much more.
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Surprisingly, the film had quite a short production window. It was conceptualized and shot in a matter of months. “We were talking about it from the Summer of 2023,” Phillips confirmed. “There were lots of articles saying that Disney was about to lose the copyright on Steamboat Willie [at the beginning of 2024]. We were very surprised that we were the only ones that sort of worked towards that.”
Production began in the fall, and has since been completed. Both Bailey and Phillips honestly thought there would be at least “100 movies” announced. While several other Mickey-centric projects have revealed themselves since, the two say that it doesn’t really matter. “First place is first place.”
Despite being first in this particular rat race, they acknowledge the fact that they owe a lot to last year’s Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. “We love that movie. We love what those guys did with it,” they said. “It was great to see what they did with it. And those guys are doing a sequel. We can’t wait. We’ll be first in line to see that one too.”
But they pointed out that the film and their goal of making it was never to disrespect Disney. In fact, the duo considers it to be more of a love letter. “We’re big fans of Disney fans in general, so this is just our opportunity to be playful and creative with the character. And that’s exactly what we did,” Phillips said.
“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,” Bailey added. “We 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?”
Bailey isn’t wrong either. As it turns out, everyone wants to see it. “We were the most talked about movie on planet Earth on January 2nd,” Bailey said. And he’s not wrong. To date, the trailer has been viewed more than a million times across dozens of different YouTube channels – and that’s not including the reactions. The film doesn’t even have a release date, but if the buzz is any indication there is a clear market for these kinds of films.
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Now, Bailey and Phillips don’t normally make horror films. Both have worked on a slew of other genre projects. In fact, Phillips’ most recent production is Netflix’s Fubar, which is notably Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first leading role in a scripted live-action television series. Phillips’ versatility should especially be noted because on top of producing the slasher, he is the man under the mouse mask too.
With this particular character, Bailey and Phillips felt an obligation to do something that had never been done. “It wouldn’t be very interesting if we put Mickey Mouse in a live action comedy movie,” Bailey said. “That’s sort of covering ground Disney already had.”
As the character entered the public domain, Disney issued a statement about its intent to protect the rights of the more modern versions of the character. The company said, “More modern versions of Mickey will remain unaffected by the expiration of the Steamboat Willie copyright, and Mickey will continue to play a leading role as a global ambassador for the Walt Disney Company in our storytelling, theme park attractions, and merchandise…We will work to safeguard against consumer confusion caused by unauthorized uses of Mickey and our other iconic characters.”
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Despite obviously being two Davids against one of the world’s biggest Goliaths, Bailey and Phillips revealed that not once did they ever fear getting sued. Although the movie was clearly completed before the character entered public domain, they say that Disney can’t touch them legally.
“Copyright is concerned is publishing,” Bailey clarifies. “You could be working on a movie for 10 years, but as long as you don’t release it nobody can go, ‘Oh, well, you started working on this clearly before yesterday…’ Anyone can make any movie about anything if they want to play it for their friends. I mean, nobody can stop you from doing that. It’s when you’re getting actually paid for it. That’s when it becomes legal.”
With all the initial questions about their film and copyright law, both men pointed out the irony in how The Walt Disney Company made some of its earliest profits using public domain characters.
“The Grimms’ fairy tales were only some of [the company’s] sources,” Phillips said. “We’re only doing the same.”
He added that he and Bailey have a running joke about the odd chance that Disney does pursue legal action against them. “I will personally direct three Marvel movies for free if [Disney] doesn’t sue us,” Bailey said.
“And one Pixar movie,” Phillips added.
Now, currently, the film does not have a release date. While there were originally plans for it to come out in the first week of March, strong interest from buyers has paved a way for an even bigger marketing campaign and a release date later this year.
Bailey and Phillips, who have been handling all of the film’s press by themselves, implore fans to follow the film’s official Instagram page for all of the latest updates.
You can watch the full interview below!
