Happy Public Domain Day!

No idea how you are celebrating, but one filmmaker chose the day, January 1st, to debut the trailer for a new slasher movie featuring the Steamboat Willie iteration of Mickey Mouse. The character, introduced in 1928, entered the public domain on New Year’s Day 2024.

The film, titled Mickey’s Mouse Trap, is a slasher in the same (severed) vein as Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, a 2023 film that used the A.A. Milne character which became public domain on January 1st of last year.

The film, which according to the trailer now available on YouTube, is coming from Into Frame Productions. The film’s synopsis reads, “It’s Alex’s 21st birthday, but she’s stuck at the amusement arcade on a late shift so her friends decide to surprise her, but a masked killer dressed as Mickey Mouse decides to play a game of his own with them which she must survive.”

The trailer is careful to show that their killer Mickey is based on the Steamboat Willie character, projecting the cartoon on a wall in part of the trailer. The movie clip features a hockey-jersey clad character, sporting the Willie mask and wielding a knife as he prowls through a deserted arcade.

The movie was directed by Jamie Bailey, who said in a statement: “We just wanted to have fun with it all. I mean it’s Steamboat Willie‘s Mickey Mouse murdering people. It’s ridiculous. We ran with it and had fun doing it and I think it shows.”

The cast of the film includes Sophie McIntosh, Callum Sywyk, Allegra Nocita, Ben Harris, Damir Kovic, Mackenzie Mills, Nick Biskupek and Simon Phillips, who posted the trailer. It was produced by Paul Whitney, Mark Popejoy, Alexander Gausman and Andrew Agopsowicz.

No release date has been announced, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, producers are aiming for a March release, which might be in theaters or on an as-yet unnamed platform.

The day after the Mickey Mouse Trap trailer dropped, Variety reported that yet another Steamboat slasher pic was in the works. Director Steven Lamorte is helming an as-yet untitled horror-comedy based on the Willie character. In his film, a sadistic mouse will torment a group of unsuspecting ferry passengers. Production is set to begin in the spring.

Many other works are entering the public domain this year, although only the only other Disney character going public is Tigger – again, the A. A. Milne version of the character, who was not featured in Blood and Honey. This year, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, An American in Paris, and silent films The Circus by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman join the list of works that could all be featured in slasher films by the end of the year.