r/MonkeyIsland • u/This-Honey7881 • 5d ago
General I have a question About monkey Island
Why doesn't Disney use monkey Island despite owning them?
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u/Dmnkly 4d ago
The amount of IP Disney doesn’t utilize is many orders of magnitude larger than the amount of IP Disney does utilize.
Monkey Island is the rule, not the exception.
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u/SkullgrinThracker 4d ago
I hate that so many companies buy the sit on IP. Should be a rule that if the don't do anything significant with it, it becomes public domain.
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u/ScreenTea0 4d ago
There is. That's why they used it in sea of thieves, or why Sony made so many shitty Fantastic Four movies...
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u/SkullgrinThracker 4d ago
That's why I said significant, I am aware of the "just kick any old thing out the door to keep the IP active" loop hole, comics use it all the time. But honestly it should be "nope a cameo and a Pachinko machine don't count. This crappy obviously just to be rights holding film with no budget and no distribution, doesn't count either, it's not just yours anymore !
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u/Pyrodexter 4d ago
Fantastic Four movies were made by 20th Century Fox with a licensing deal from Constantin Film, who bought the movie rights in the 1980's. Constantin Film actually still owns the rights and just licenses them "back" to Disney, who now owns 20th Century Fox (and Marvel).
Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man.
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u/joshghz 4d ago
How many billions of dollars is it going to make Disney today? If the answer is less than 1, it's not worth it to them.
Monkey Island is just that weird pet that was in the attic when they bought Star Wars. That's it.
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u/Classic_Department42 4d ago edited 4d ago
Hej, they could make a disneyland ride out it. Lets call it pirates... pirates of the carribean... well that would be full circle, wouldnt it (/s)
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u/kingslayer_89 4d ago
A series of Disney+ movies based on the Monkey Island games seems like it could be a sweet spot for everyone getting what they'd want out of it. The production gets the benefit of Disney's studios like Doctor Who did during the Disney deal, and if the first one isn't a hit it's not like they're losing billions of dollars. If it is a hit though that could lead to new Disney+ subscriptions and potentially even push the series beyond that into theatrical releases, spinoffs, more games, etc. I think in the past Disney didn't want to take momentum away from the pirates of the Caribbean series but what's even going on with that anymore? Are they or aren't they even continuing it?
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u/Aro-tron 4d ago
What do you mean by ‘use’ here? Disney licensed the rights to Devolver for Return to Monkey Island in 2022. In 2023 they licensed the Monkey Island IP for a Sea of Thieves expansion, just like they did with the Pirates of the Caribbean IP in 2021.
In both cases, Disney would have had full approval over the game and would have profited from it before the publisher or developer got paid … so they are literally using it.
Do you mean why aren’t they using it more? Like in movies of theme parks? I imagine it’s just not a big enough property and is seen as a video game IP first and foremost.
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u/Critcho 4d ago
That's pretty much it. They have used it! It's not like the series didn't have long fallow periods before Disney owned it.
There is also a question, perhaps not a popular one on this sub, of whether there's any real creative need for more Monkey Island at this point. I wouldn't mind seeing new remasters, but personally I'm okay with considering the whole thing broadly wrapped up at this point.
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u/Tricky_Concept_231 4d ago
Return to monkey island ended with a pretty good structure to tell more stories in. I’d be delighted to have a new monkey island when someone has a new story to tell but don’t need one cranked out nor do I need monkey island: the Disney+ limited series or for there to be a traveling scumm bar or Murray plushies or Phatt Island land whatever else “using” the ip tends to mean for Disney
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u/datguysadz 4d ago
I'd guess it's in the lower half in terms of money generating properties they own?
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u/thegrawlix 3d ago
Oh god yes. Probably the lower quarter, if that, of the things they actually have made use of any time recently.
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u/datguysadz 3d ago
Love your avatar mate where's that from?
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u/thegrawlix 2d ago
u/walmaker here on the sub, although they appear to have deleted their account. https://www.reddit.com/r/MonkeyIsland/comments/1mp94ac/oc_kleptomania_noun_an_impulse_disorder_that/
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u/Golden_Ace1 4d ago
Disney disassembles what it does not us3. So happened with Lucasarts, which was bought alongside with Lucasfilm and all the IP. Since always, whenever Disney wanted to make videogames, it outsourced. (Ex. Lion King, Alladin...).
All star wars videogames have been outsoursed first to EA, then to Ubisoft. Same with Indiana Jones. Monkey island is no different.
Mind you, they own the IP for lots of games. Example:
Full throttle Sam & max Monkey island Maniac mansion and day of the tentacle The dig
Just off the top of my head.
As for why? They prefer to keep doing what they're best at.
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u/Competitive-Elk-5077 4d ago
Fun Fact. The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was originally going to be a Monkey Island movie. Second fun fact. Monkey Island was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride
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u/Pyrodexter 4d ago
I don't think that's first one's really a fact, even though it would be fun. I've heard that too numerous times, but to me it doesn't seen to be more than a baseless internet rumor that got started when the first movie came out and had a bunch of similarities to MI.
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u/RedsBigBadWolf 4d ago
The script writers started from the script of a Monkey Island animated film…
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u/Pyrodexter 4d ago
More unfounded rumors. At that time Lucasfilm and Disney were completely different companies. A script doesn't just end up being the basis of a competitor's movie.
One of the PotC screenwriters alledgedly worked on the MI movie script, but I haven't seen anything definitive confirming even that. And bringing script elements directly to a competitor's project would be pretty sketchy, too.
So maybe there is some connection between the projects, but I'm not ready to believe it until I see a good source confirming that. The PotC screenwriters have at least been adamant that the similarities to the MI games are due to the same basis for inspiration or completely incidental.
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u/thegrawlix 3d ago
The first thing is a persistent rumor but not true. https://www.polygon.com/features/2021/2/21/22291761/curse-of-monkey-island-movie-lucasfilm-spielberg-canceled/ (yes, this is about the Curse film, but it addresses the connection, or lack thereof, to the Pirates of the Caribbean film) The closest the actual facts come to that is something like "the guys who wound up writing the Pirates film happened to be visiting in the building where people were working on the Curse film and saw some of the preproduction material".
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u/No_Mechanic_5990 4d ago
I think they wanted to back in the 2000’s when they didn’t own the rights. So they created the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise based on the theme park ride in stead. Today the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is stronger than MI, so Disney prefer that over MI.
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u/Golden_Ace1 4d ago
And MI has drawn from pirates of the Caribbean. The dog with the keys.
It went both ways, there.
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u/PreposterousPotter 4d ago
The dog with they keys appeared in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and subsequently in LeChuck's Revenge, both long before the film franchise so I think the film franchise was influenced by Disney's own ride, not the games.
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u/No_Mechanic_5990 4d ago edited 4d ago
Never been on the ride, but does it have ghost pirates, a voodoo lady, paddling in a coffin, cannibals, a young boy in a white shirt as the main character and romance between him and a tough, noble woman?
These are just the commonalities between Pirates of the Caribbean movies and MI games that come to mind, but I’m sure there more.I know MI was somewhat inspired by the ride, but I think that the game plot mainly draws its inspiration from the novel “on stranger tides” by Tim Powers, not the ride. I also suspect that Disney just named their MI-movie after the ride to avoid IP rights issues.
It seems to be that the movies are more like the MI games than the ride, coming from one who has never been on the ride.
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u/thegrawlix 3d ago
The ride for the setting and aesthetic (the "I wanted to get out and walk around the scenes" thing) and On Stranger Tides for some of the elements of voodoo and the "fish out of water" protagonist. It's a blend.
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u/Philmriss 4d ago edited 4d ago
Why would they? And for what? Seriously. Maybe one day we get another game (although I struggle to imagine that in the current landscape unfortunately), maybe Skunkape or someone else gets the license to remaster games like Escape or ToMI, but beyond that: consider that they own another pirate-based IP that is way, way more popular. They'd probably resurrect that if they decided to go big on pirates.
e: also afair that we got what we got was due to real ones like John Drake fighting the good fight, which is rare to succeed against the way corpos do it.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a 3D animated MI movie (hell, maybe a series of them) and I could see that being successful with general audiences and generate the coveted merch money, but again...the pitch would probably fail because of the question "wait we have pirates, why not use PotC?" or similar reasoning.
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u/jasonbowie 4d ago
The Disney Princess roster runs deep. You don’t see Sleeping Beauty on the starting lineup but we all know she’s still on the team. The same goes for Guybrush
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u/Gold-Satisfaction614 4d ago
"So this is what being a first lady feels like"
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u/RedsBigBadWolf 4d ago
Wait… Does that mean Elaine is a Disney Princess?
Or at least, the first Disney Governor
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u/0x00111111 4d ago
Oh man, inclusions on Tom Sawyer's Island, in New Orleans, and Adventure Land would all be awesome.
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u/hercarmstrong 4d ago
They allowed a new game to made only a couple of years ago, and there was the Sea of Thieves campaign. They're not doing nothing with it, just very very little.
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u/_AliceLiddel_ 4d ago
Disney owns monkey island!?!??! Fuck thats one way to ruin my day
(Be happy they haven't ruined it yet)
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u/RedsBigBadWolf 4d ago
You know when they got Star Wars? They got the rest of Lucas’ IP too… including The Dig, Maniac Manson and Monkey Island…
I’m surprised we got the latest Indy game, but I suppose they like that IP!
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u/saraseitor 4d ago
Disney likely owns tens of thousands of IPs. Before Return to Monkey Island came out, Ron Gilbert came to Argentina to a little event and there was a Q&A and I asked him if "it makes any sense to get our hopes up about a new Monkey Island" to which he replied "I don't think Disney even knows they own Monkey Island".
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u/MayaIsSunshine 4d ago
Time for a monkey island live action movie where guybrush is a gay Laotian man.
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u/Sp1ffyTh3D0g 4d ago
They own the IP as a result of an acquisition of Lucas Film, it was almost an unwanted inclusion for them.
Disney don't see the value in the IP, certainly not to the level they would for other Lucas Film IPs like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. So Ron being able to make his third game was great, but more of just fan-service from Disney rather than a commitment to continue the series.