by Sam Ottinger

Winnie-the-Pooh and Steamboat Willie have been a part of many people’s childhoods, through many different generations. Yet that isn’t the only connection, for they have all recently joined the public domain in the past three years.

The Public Domain is when a certain copyrighted property can now be used freely, without obtaining permission from the original copyright owner in order to gain money from the IP. 

This availability can actually expand the character by having more interpretations of beloved characters, yet, as has happened to many already, it can just be a quick name to slap on a low budget movie without thinking of the connections between the source material and the new take.

A good example of this more lackluster avenue is the horror movie “Mouse Trap,” directed by Jamie Bailey and released on August 6, 2024, a horror take on “SteamBoat Willie,” which entered the public domain on Jan. 1 of that same year. The trailer for this movie first popped up a day after on Jan. 2. 

This movie has very little going for it, and the inclusion of this past Disney property isn’t part of that group. 

“Mouse Trap” has very few meaningful connections with SteamBoat Willie, except for random inclusions of the original short, and a mask that is supposed to resemble him. Yet even this mask point can be debated, for it seems to be more based off of the present day Mickey Mouse, lacking the steamboat hat of Willie, which is a key part of discerning the two versions.

This could be ignored, if the environment took up pieces of the original setting of a boat, but even that is ignored in favor of a random arcade.

“Mouse Trap” is a prime example of a movie using a well known IP in order to garner attention to a generic horror movie. The similarities between their “Steamboat Willie” and the modern day Mickey Mouse, even having the name of the villain be Mickey Mouse and not Willie,  shows how they were less focused on turning the original short (or even just putting something truly inspired by it in) into something new with passion behind it.

In a very telling interview with scriptwriter Simon Phillips, he reveals the true intentions behind this movie’s creation.

First, he talks about is that their original idea is the idea they went with. This would typically not be a problem, but with everything else, it just adds to show the lack of care in producing a good movie, let alone one with good connections to a source material.

In this interview he also talks about the original name of Mickey’s Mouse Trap; this is another small detail that could be seen as minor, but it just shows the limited research done on the specific version in the current domain.

This horror movie trend continues with “Blood and Honey,” released March 17, 2023, and its sequel, released March 18, 2024. Both are slasher takes on Winnie the Pooh and his friends. Winnie and Piglet entering the public domain in January 1, 2022.

The first movie had a connection to the original material in the beginning, through a drawn backstory; yet it loses that clear connection quite quickly. It does do a slightly better job at representing the original IP than “Mouse Trap” did, but it also ends up in the category of being another generic slasher movie with a main antagonist that just happens to look like the classic character.

The first movie was also just one of the many movies produced by Jagged Edge Productions throughout 2023, showing another layer to its focus not on being a good movie, but more a focus on quantity over quality.

Luckily, not all horror versions of public domain IPs are unable to go through improvement.

The second “Blood and Honey,” aptly named “Blood and Honey 2,” is able to prove that creativity can be used in these sorts of concepts. 

“Blood and Honey 2” includes new characters, like Owl and Tigger, due to their copyright running out between the first and the second, on January 1, 2024.

It is still not a perfect movie, but the increased budget, time, and effort used to create it helps elevate it from the first movie.

The mere presence of a second movie for a poorly received yet well known film typically is seen as another excuse to make money, but this wasn’t a project that was meant to be spat out and forgotten as the first one had.

Even with the bigger budget, roughly $500K, there were many aspects that producer Scott Chambers and director Rhys Frake-Waterfield had to take into their own hands to improvise solutions, such as when their costume designer quit on them three days before they were to start filming.

This already shows more effort and passion than “Mouse Trap” ever had. 

There was, of course, an incentive to create a second movie, due to the possible profit that could be made, but instead of going down the route of quickly making a cheap sequel, they stuck to making something with a better script, acting, and prosthetics.

When a well known character enters the public domain, many are quick to try and profit from it by making low budget projects including these characters.

Notably, many are horror themed, which can either be equated with the fact that studios aren’t having to worry as much if a horror film fails than if an action one did, or due to the trend of turning something that would appeal to children into something darker that was popular around the times these movies were released.

Nevertheless, there are many who use these characters as a way to earn off of their name(s), but that shouldn’t dissuade others who have ideas with these IPs from creating something they truly have passion for. These characters don’t deserve to be left behind just because their copyright expired.

The public domain is here for the benefit of creativity, even when that may lead to not-so-perfect media