By: Darien Campo | Film Aficionado
Film fans rejoice. Last week, the Walt Disney Company finally signed a multi-million dollar, multi-corporation contract which has been years in the making, officially granting them all rights to the entirety of late director Stanley Kubrick’s back catalogue.
“It’s a very exciting time,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a press conference last Friday. We’ve known for years now that Disney has hit its stride, and we can all admit that it’s time for us to pursue a new angle, if we dare to continue releasing films.”
“I’ve been saying this for years,” Zenia Mucha, executive vice president and chief communications officer at Disney told the Washington Post. “If we have to do one more god d— heartwarming musical about talking animals, I’m burning this place to the ground. So I gave Bob an ultimatum: either we purchase the rights to every Stanley Kubrick film, or I’m out. And he knew I was serious.”
The Stanley Kubrick Cinematic Universe, or SKCU as Disney is calling it, will reportedly mold perfectly with Disney’s existing film canons.
“This is the greatest day of my life,” Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios said in an online post yesterday. “I always knew, no matter what, that the Marvel Cinematic Universe would never reach its peak until I was legally able to give the OK on Dr. Strange vs. Dr. Strangelove – and now I can.”
Feige has also greenlit production on sequels to “A Clockwork Orange,” “Lolita” and “Spartacus,” as well as sending talent scouts to begin casting for a “2001: A Space Odyssey” television series exclusively for Netflix.
What’s in the future for Disney? A whole lot, according to Pixar chief creative officer, John Lasseter: “It’s a world of opportunity that has opened up to us now. The first project I ever started was a CGI children’s remake of Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon,’ but Steve Jobs told me there was no way he was going to purchase those rights for us. So eventually that project became Toy Story. But you know what? Steve Jobs is dead now. And so is that b—– Kubrick, so I’m going to make whatever film I want to make, and there’s no one left alive who can tell me I can’t.”
Today, an article in Entertainment Weekly revealed that DC is currently in talks to purchase the rights to the filmography of Paul Thomas Anderson.
Contact the author at dcampo13@wou.edu
