Winnie the Pooh. Popeye. Steamboat Willie. These days, it seems the instant a recognizable character becomes public domain, someone immediately turns them into a horror movie. Why is that, and what is it like behind the scenes?
To get those answers, io9 spoke with Steven LaMorte. He’s the co-writer and director of Screamboat, a Steamboat Willie slasher film that’s in theaters April 2. As we covered in the first half of our interview, it’s a film that might be a love letter to Disney, but that doesn’t come without some guardrails. In order to avoid being sued, films like Screamboat have to adhere to some simple but important guidelines, which makes for a very interesting exercise in storytelling.
As this is LaMorte’s second public domain horror film—he did a Grinch-themed film called The Mean One in 2022—we spoke to him about all that and more. You can see the line between legal and “Disney lawyers being very mad” in full effect when you watch Screamboat April 2. Check out the interview below.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Germain Lussier, io9: So having made a movie about the Grinch, you were kind of familiar with public domain films. When did you hear that Steamboat Willie was coming up, and how did it come about that you got involved with it?
Steven LaMorte: So after the sort of viral sensation that was The Mean One, we knew we had to do a follow-up. I don’t know what it was going to be, but we knew we were going to do something. And I was really struggling to figure out what that project was going to be. My wife said, “Well, don’t worry about characters or IP or any of that stuff. What’s a story you’ve always wanted to tell?” And I said, “Well, I’ve always wanted to make either a slasher or a murder mystery or some kind of big adventure story that’s a little scary on the Staten Island Ferry.” So I said, “Let’s dust that concept off and see if there’s something there.”
I’m from New York City. I’ve ridden the Staten Island Ferry thousands of times, going back and forth at all hours of the night, commuting to college where I went to film school. And so I did a little research and I said, “Well, which characters are coming into the public domain that might fit with that?” And then it became clear that Steamboat Willie was next up. So there’s no way they’re going to let him go into the public domain. But let’s take this idea, we’ll sit it on the shelf, let it marinate and see what happens. And then as we got closer, it became more and more clear that the killer really could be Steamboat Willie. And doing my ferry history research, the Staten Island Ferry was once powered by steam. It’s like a perfect mix. And you set it with the backdrop of the greatest city in the world, New York City. Like what could be better?
io9: Yes, exactly. That’s great. So you have this idea, it comes together, but with something like a Disney IP such as Steamboat Willie, clearly you’re not the only one who sees that and notices it. And we know there’s at least one other movie like this. At that point, does it become a race? Do you follow those other movies and does it matter if you are first? I’m curious if that’s a consideration when you’re looking for financing and all that kind of stuff.
LaMorte: I don’t know if it’s a race per se. I think it’s a race if you’re trying to grab clicks or headlines or just grab attention, for sure. I mean, our goal when we set out to make this movie was to make something fun and entertaining. Something that really honored the character and did it justice. Because we didn’t want to do a Steamboat Willie-inspired film that loosely follows the design. We wanted to do something that was a creature feature where he was mischievous, where he was small, and so we knew that was going to take time to really do and to execute correctly. Not only from the standpoint of we wanted to wait until he was fully in the public domain before we started shooting, but also knowing that the effects take time, shooting the gore gags the way that we do takes time.
I mean, if you’ve ever seen a Terrifier movie, they’ll spend a whole week on a kill just to get it right. And knowing that it was important to us that we didn’t just execute, but executed it at a level that did the IP justice, that would really be a fun theatrical experience, meant it was going to take a little bit of time. So it wasn’t critical to us that it came out first. What mattered was that we did it right and that we were really proud of the film we made.
