It was reported earlier this week that Halloween Kills filmmaker David Gordon Green has been attached to direct a film on the birth of Disneyland, Walt Disney’s first theme park. Spiliotopoulos, who penned Disney’s multibillion-dollar live-action Beauty and the Beast remake, will pen the script.
Director David Gordon Green revealed his strategy to developing a movie based on the Happiest Place on Earth with Collider for Halloween Kills publicity, and to the pleasure of ardent Disney fans, not only will Walt Disney play a crucial role, but so will his number-crunching brother Roy Disney:
“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 disclosed that the Disney+ project has yet to be written, but that it will span several years, from Walt’s initial concept of Disneyland to development and construction, and finally 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.”
Finally, the site inquired if the director planned to cast Tom Hanks, a distant descendant of Walt Disney, as the iconic figure, as he did 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 certainly on David Gordon Green’s to-do list, the film will most likely be released on Disney+ in a few years. Gordon Green has yet to complete the filming of Halloween Ends, which will begin in January. He’s also working on HBO’s Hellraiser and producing a trilogy based on The Exorcist. It wouldn’t be surprising if more details about the Disneyland film were unveiled at next year’s D23 Expo. Until then, we can only hope for a fitting story told of the first “Imagineer,” Walt Disney.
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