Kevin Smith Opens Up About His Cancelled Disney+ Series KINGDOM KEEPERS

Before Disney+ was even a thing, Kevin Smith was developing a show for it titled Kingdom Keepers, and this show sounds like it would have been a Disney fan’s dream. Unfortunately, the project was shut down.

The property is a series of children’s novels written by Ridley Pearson, and the story follows the adventures of five teens who, by day, are holographic hosts in the Disney Theme Parks. By night, they battle Disney villains to keep them from taking control of the parks, the Disney entertainment empire, and the world.

During a recent episode of FatMan Beyond LIVE, Smith opened up about the project explained why it didn’t end up getting made:

"In the beginning when they were still birthing the ideas of Disney Plus, before it even had a name and stuff, the Disney Channel was in charge of all the programming.”

"Then they put this other dude [in charge], I forget his name, but he was the guy that was like 'Let's do Marvel shows, let's do this.' And he was the dude that killed our show. And the word I heard back was that dude was like 'This property has way too much IP in it. He's got every fucking Disney character alive,' because that's what we were developing. The book kind of is about kids that go into Disney after dark and the park comes to life and shit like that. Real fun, fantasy stuff."

He went on to talk about the disappointment of the project being cancelled after all the hard work that his put into developing it:

"When I met producers and they showed me the volume and talked logistics, that's when I was like 'This show might actually fucking happen.' But then killed, just instantly. Dude who was hired was like 'Pull the fucking plug.' I don't bear any ill-will. I was like 'It's all their property.' I didn't come to them like 'This is my baby,' they came to me… At the end of the day I was like 'Oh, it's over now.'... All that work belongs to them and they're like 'It's gonna go on a shelf and nobody will ever see it or deal with it' and there is a moment of like 'Well, was that a waste of time? Did I just waste all my time?'"

This is a show that I know a lot of fans would have enjoyed. While there are Marvel and Star Wars shows, it’s silly to me that Disney doesn’t have its own epic series on Disney+ that plays with all of its fun and lovable characters. Kingdom Keepers could have been that, and I’m sure it would have been a hit with the fans.