Odd Peter Pan story--any insider info?

[DancingBear]

A-V, or anyone else, can you make sense out of this?

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=470444

 

[Another Voice]

From what I understand, this is tied to the new Peter Pan due in theaters shortly but that Disney "dropped out" a while ago.

Disney considered doing several live action versions of Pan (one with Michael Jackson no less) over the years. But most of the projects floundered on the issue of rights. I do not know a lot of the details, but I've heard the basic disagreement about what Disney owes the Children's Hospital. Essentially Disney believes it purchased the animated film rights back in the 1950's and owes nothing more. This extends to sequels and all the merchandise that Disney creates based on the characters it designs. Not only does the Hospital disagree with the merchandising aspect, but they also hold that a live action movie would require a new license. None of the projects ever went all that far.

Disney has long maintained that anything not specifically written into the original agreements is free for Disney's taking. As technology has changed, Disney has tired time and time again to claim that video tapes, computer games, DVDs, interactive audio books, CDs, sequels, theme park rides, and anything else invented after the contract was signed was "royalty free". They've fought lawsuit after lawsuit from those involved (even after all the other studios have changed the interpretation of old contracts) and have been hard nosed about things. The most famous recent example is when Disney deleted sequences of the Mousekeeters performing at Disneyland for the "uncensored and uncut" Disney Treasure DVD release. The company had lost a lawsuit so it butchered the tapes rather than pay the court ordered residuals.

The new movie is made by Revolution Studios, a company founded by Joe Roth when Michael Eisner booted him from running Disney Studios (yet another in a long string of executives that Eisner thought looked a little too longingly at the throne). I would assume, but don't know, that the new film is a project that Roth took with him from Disney. It's also possible (but I have no idea one way the other) that Disney sold its stake in the project to Universal and/or Columbia.

As the linked article mentioned, Disney sued in court to get a Scottish shop from using the name 'Peter Pan' because Disney owned the copyright (I also have memories of a case involving the name 'Tinkerbell'). But the British courts ruled that the Hospital owns the rights, not Disney - the store purchased a license from the hospital and the matter was dropped. It's extremely unlikely that Disney would want to push the case too far least it lose even more. This also marks a unique difference with the Winnie the Pooh case where Disney purchased rights from the American holder (and so this issue in the American courts).

 

[DancingBear]

Thanks, A-V. So, from what you're saying, Disney did drop this project at least in part over the payment for rights issue, but certainly did not drop it in the last couple of weeks.

 

[Micca]

The previews look awesome. I wish it was a Disney project.