Max Landis Shares Some Crazy and Fun Details on His Shelved SPACE MOUNTAIN Disney Film
Back in 2012 before Disney bought Lucasfilm and relaunched the Star Wars franchise, they were looking to make a film based on the ride Space Mountain. Max Landis (Chronicle) wrote a script for the film that was eventually picked up by Disney and later shelved.
It's not surprising that Disney would want to do this at the time because they were making all kinds of movies based on their theme park attractions. The reason they didn't want to move forward with Space Mountain is because Star Wars corners their space and sci-fi market.
In a recent interview with Screen Junkies, Landis opened up about the project and explains what it entailed. It's actually a pretty fun and crazy concept. He wanted to make a retro 50s style sci-fi film and he said it was inspired by the old surf music that played on the ride.
He says his goal was to make a movie "where people said ‘gee whiz’ but the stakes were huge." he went on to say:
"My Space Mountain movie was cool. It was a ’50s retro future movie. They had rocket ships and ray guns but no cell phones and internet."
He then went into some detail and talked about the rocket ships that traveled "faster than light" on tracks and explains how traveling that fast turns people into monsters. Yes, traveling at the speed of light turns people into horrible monsters. He explains:
"Another cool thing was the idea that when you come back from light speed, you’re 9 and a half grams lighter but you seem normal. Then slowly over the course of a day, it turns out that the human soul can’t travel at light speed. So whole ships come back with people with no souls who seem normal but then turn into horrible monsters — no wonder this movie didn’t get made."
That's such a strange concept, but it's also unique. Space Mountain certainly would have made for an interesting and cool film. Landis also shared some concept art showing off some of the rocket ship concept art that was done for the movie. Who knows, maybe one day, Disney will dust off the script and develop it.
What do you think of the concept?
if you're curious about my long-dead Space Mountain project at Disney that I mentioned on @JennyENicholson's show, here's some concept art. pic.twitter.com/zjy68WK5V1
— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) September 25, 2017