Mickey Mouse becomes slasher film star as Steamboat Willie copyright expires

Hours after the copyright of the first incarnation of one of Disney’s most iconic characters expired, Mickey Mouse was the star of a slasher film.

Steamboat Willie, which features the original version of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, was first released in 1928 and as of January 1 is now in the public domain, with the characters’ likeness free to be used without legal pushback from Disney.

But it is only the more mischievous, rat-like, non-speaking boat captain in Steamboat Willie that has become public, not the likeness more familiar to audiences.

Within an hour of Steamboat Willie’s copyright expiring, a poster and teaser trailer was released of horror film, Mickey’s Mouse Trap. The trailer of the self-styled “first ever Mickey Mouse horror film” shows a masked killer wearing a Mickey Mouse mask attacking people in an arcade.

It even features an original cartoon of Steamboat Willie that is being shown on an old projector as the tension builds.

Releasing the teaser on YouTube, the film’s makers wrote: “This film makes use of Public domain Steam Boat Willie Mickey Mouse only. Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse entered public domain on January 1st 2024. No copyright infringement of later versions of Mickey Mouse or trademark infringements.”

The film is slated to be released in March.

US law allows a copyright to be held for 95 years after Congress expanded it several times during Mickey’s life.

Steamboat Willie, directed by Walt Disney and his partner Ub Iwerks and among the first cartoons to have sound synced with its visuals, was the third cartoon featuring Mickey and Minnie they made, but the first to be released. It features a more menacing Mickey captaining a boat and making musical instruments out of other animals.

In it, and in a clip from it used in the introduction to Disney animated films in recent years, Mickey whistles the 1910 tune Steamboat Bill.

The original version of Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain. / Credit:

Another famous animal sidekick, Tigger, will join his friend Winnie the Pooh in the public domain as the book in which the bouncing tiger first appeared, The House at Pooh Corner, turns 96.

Pooh, probably the most celebrated character to become public property before Mickey, came into the public domain two years ago when AA Milne’s original Winnie the Pooh lost copyright protection resulting in some novel uses, including, like Mickey, as a serial killer in Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey.

Other properties entering the US public domain are Charlie Chaplin’s film Circus, Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando and Bertolt Brecht’s musical play The Threepenny Opera.