Mickey Mouse is in the public domain and things are getting weird... The 1928 version of the beloved cartoon, called Steamboat Willie,entered the public domain four days ago after Disney’s longstanding copyright (thanks to the US Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 that curbs the free-use of protected intellectual property until 95 years after first publication) expired and people are already cooking up some bizarre uses for the copyright-free iteration of the beloved mouse, says BBC.

There is a comedy horror movie in the works…the still-untitled movie, directed by Steven LaMorte, will star the formerly-friendly mouse, but instead of his usual friends, he’ll be seen alongside ferry passengers that he intends to torture throughout their journey in a display of “unhinged terror,” LaMorte said in a press release as quoted in Variety.

These new depictions of the character are a form of play rather than insult, explains LaMorte. In the film he intends to play with the character, as a child does in a “sandbox” playing around with their favorite characters, he tells Variety.

But wait, there’s more…On Monday a trailer for Mickey’s Mouse Trap was released and, frankly, it is absurdly chilling: The cheery mouse is part of a slasher film set in an amusement park, emerging covered in blood and pulling away teens to their bloody demise.

Then there is a Mickey Mouse cryptocurrency…more accurately, a meme coin, which is created out of the Ethereum blockchain and has a value of USD 6.5 k, says The Crypto Times.

Disney affirms that they will protect their brand despite the shift to public use of this version of the character. To avoid any trouble, LaMorte is making sure to stay within the legal bounds of the usage, and isn’t planning on using the name “Mickey Mouse” anywhere in the film. The conglomerate reserves the right to sue over any “perceived endorsement or affiliation with its brand,” they are quoted as saying in Variety. So hopeful creatives need to be careful.

Curious? Have a look at some of the creative and often disturbing iterations of Steamboat Willie on X.

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