Disney's Mort

[Wonderlicious]

Guys, I hate to be bearer of bad news, but I wouldn't blame the author Terry Pratchett for somebody else making the film. He was alive when the rights issue flared up with Disney, but he passed away early last year. I assume that the rights were won again by another studio in between the author's passing, which is why they might not have had to pander to his requests.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31858156

[Disney's Divinity]

I had thought he might have passed a while back because I remember something about a ghostwriter or whatever doing a few Discworld novels after he died, but I was too lazy to Google.

[disneyprincess11]

Honestly, I don't blame Terry for turning Disney down for the rights. Based on the concept arts, this looked like a typical Disney love story when really it isn't. It's disappointing this was never made, but if Terry thought Disney would soil it, so be it

[blackcauldron85]

The Unmade Terry Pratchett Movies (and Why They Didn’t Happen)
By Marc Burrows
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/unmade ... nt-happen/

...Pratchett and Smythe finally found a cinematic home for Mort in 1996 when a deal was announced with New Line Cinema...in partnership with a British company, Scala Productions, and British writer/director Paul Bamborugh...Directors and writers came and went, New Line appeared to drop out of the picture altogether....

Pratchett had been approached by Walt Disney Animation Studios about adapting Mort into a full blown, all singing, all dancing animated musical feature....an art department was set up, which even distributed a Christmas card featuring Death dressed as Father Christmas...

...There were two snags. The first was that the rights to Mort, acquired back in 1996, still resided with Paul Bamborough and his new company, Camel Productions, though Disney probably had enough money to sort that out. More worrying for Pratchett was a revelation during a meeting in New York that, should he give Mort to the House of Mouse, they would have automatic rights to make further films using all of the characters and locations within it, including adapting all of the books that they appeared in.

Since the main character of Mort is Death himself, who cameos or stars in almost every Discworld novel, numbering some 39 books by that point, plus short stories and spinoffs, this was something of a problem. It is, apparently, the only time one particular Disney lawyer ever found himself being literally screamed at by a prospective collaborator. The deal fell apart, right there in the meeting.

[Disney's Divinity]

Ah, interesting. I assumed Mort fell through because it always felt inevitable that it wouldn't work out because of the book itself (and because M&C wanted it to be hand-drawn...). Makes you wonder if it might've actually survived--perhaps as a 3D film--if he hadn't pulled out?? It would've been the last WDAS film based off a book if it had, right?

[Disney Duster]

Haha, a Disney lawyer got screamed at! Interesting info, blackcauldron85. Couldn't Disney just not have been wankers once and let the deal happen by not trying to force them to let them use the characters and locations in whatever else they wanted?

[Farerb]

This is probably one of the reasons Disney stopped adapting stories and started doing only original films. The other reasons might be not having complete control over the characters and being unable to adapt fairy tales for "modern audience".

While I think Musker and Clements would have made a great film out of this story, I don't think they would have been very faithful to it, since I've read it is pretty dark for a Disney film, especially nowadays.

[The Disneynerd]

A bunch of Character designs and concept art by James Lopez:

7cb65a_a3f96edc3dcf49afa27ff2bc4482c4d7_mv2.jpg (40.52 KiB) Viewed 2572 times

Now that I look at it, Mort looks a bit like a mix of an older Timmy Turner and Varian from the Tangled Series (and I kinda like it)

There are 8 more designs on his website (including a funny interaction between Mort and DEATH ) https://www.jameslopezanimation.com/mort

I think it's a shame that Disney didn't take the opportunity to make this happen, as it would really be something fresh and out of the ordinary, but oh well (i really do like the elephant emoji)

[Farerb]

I think it's a shame that Disney didn't take the opportunity to make this happen, as it would really be something fresh and out of the ordinary, but oh well

I agree with this. Everything I've seen from this film looks interesting to me, such a missed opportunity.

Thank you for sharing

[The Disneynerd]

Thank you for sharing

you're very welcome!

This is probably one of the reasons Disney stopped adapting stories and started doing only original films. The other reasons might be not having complete control over the characters and being unable to adapt fairy tales for "modern audience".

This got me thinking. It makes sense for Disney to deviate from novel adaptations where you have to risk a lot for ownership rights, but then Disney could theoretically still publish this rough story without Terry Pratchett's credit, since fairy tales are in the public domain, right? Because the Brothers Grimm published a very very similar fairy tale, titled "Godfather Death", it seems different enough, you can read it here:https://fairytalez.com/godfather-death/
(also, this website, which I discovered a month ago is a MUST for fairytale nerds, it has EVERY Fairytale in existense!!!!) I think

Does anyone know if it would be theoretically legal for Disney to do that, its not as if Terry Pratchett owns the death character, right??!?

[Farerb]

I guess it would, but I don't see current Disney doing a movie about death.

[Sotiris]

It seems Musker has been trying to shop Mort at other studios.

[John Musker]’s still hopeful about adapting Mort, from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, the book that he’s kept close throughout his entire career. No one wants to buy the story because they think it’s “too dark”: “It’s even hard for Henry Selick to sell projects. They’re just risk-averse. It’s like, we’re going to spend a lot of money and we want to make a lot of money.” Not even Steven Spielberg can get his every project greenlit. Musker warns: “Just like how in the seed of every failure is a success, in the seed of every success is failure. Too much control kills projects.”

Source: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024 ... ncess.html

[Sotiris]

Visual development art by Bill Perkins.












Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtE1u9IRVs5/

[Disney Duster]

Wow, that stuff is gorgeous! Really amazing art!