Watching the new movie Screamboat, I expected to see Steamboat Willie kill a bunch of people. I didn’t expect those people to be dressed like Disney characters, drop Disney park references, and say movie lines like “Be our guest,” “Let it go,” or “Dead men tell no tales.” But at its heart, the upcoming public domain horror film is both a dumb, funny, gory, horror film as well as a love letter to all things Disney, filled with references big and small, from the first frame to the last.
This week, io9 had a video chat with Steven LaMorte, the co-writer and director of Screamboat, and I had to dig into that. Where did the love of Disney come from? Was there a line he wouldn’t cross? How did the references come about? And was it always in the cards that Willie would be about three feet tall and have an extended animated origin?
Next week, check back to read about the ins and outs of making a big screen public domain horror film. Below, read about how LaMorte turned a lifetime of Disney fandom into a movie about a killer mouse. Screamboat opens in theaters April 2.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Germain Lussier, io9: I expected this movie to be gory, scary, funny, all these kinds of things. But I didn’t expect it to go so hard on the Disney fandom. My question to start is, what is your history with Disney? Because this could have been just a horror movie, but it’s also such a love letter to Disney as well.
Steven LaMorte: When I was born, my mother was gifted a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal that was literally the size of me when I was born. So I’ve been living with this mouse since birth. So I’m a deep-cuts Disney fanboy. I got into making movies sort of as a backdoor way to be an Imagineer. I’ve always loved effects and stagecraft and making sort of a spectacle, right? And I’ve sort of felt this kinship, not just with Walt Disney the company or the brand, but with like the guy. Someone who always thought that nothing is impossible. If you have a dream, you should go for it. So being able to do what I’m so glad you noticed [was a] love letter to Disney was so much fun. It was great.
io9: So how did you decide on the balance? Because you clearly made the decision to dress characters as Disney princesses, include one-liners that are direct quotes from Disney songs. Tell me a little bit about when that kind of became part of the DNA, how much you wanted to push it, and was there a line?
LaMorte: Some people have this preconceived notion that we don’t like Disney or that we have some sort of negative opinion, or that we don’t value the characters and the lore of the IP, but it’s the opposite. I mean, we love this stuff. This is something I’m such a fan of. And it’s been so cool to make something where I threw a bunch of jokes in that I thought were funny. And my co-writer Matthew Garcia-Dunn, it was his idea to incorporate the princesses, because I’d seen this party group on the Staten Island Ferry every Saturday night when I was in my 20s [Laughs]. So we had sort of these things. And then we started looking for these opportunities. Where do you incorporate these moments? Where do you incorporate these jokes? And some of them are very obvious and on the nose, like an actual line from the movie. And some are really, really subtle where we’re filming and I’m like, “Oh, guys, we have to frame this up. That’s the number 33. There’s a thing in Disney, it’s a club, and don’t worry about it. Just make sure you get the 33 in the shot.”
We’re doing early fan screenings, and it was interesting to talk to different groups and people who are catching all of them. We were up till all hours of the night, “What’s going to be floating in the water that someone might get?” And I’m like, “Well, we can do this one, we can do this one, we can do this one,” and so the very first time we showed the movie, I had a big guy, he’s covered in tattoos, we’re at a horror convention. He comes up to me and he’s like, “Dude, I just want you to know, I saw your Mary Poppins reference.” And I was like, “Mission accomplished!” I didn’t think anyone was going to get that.
So it’s really just, I’m on the inside. I wanted to make something that I loved and that people connected with. And if you don’t like Disney, I think you’ll have fun seeing the movie. But if you do, and you get the references, I think the movie is even more fun. And that was that’s sort of what I wanted to do. Are they Easter eggs? Sure. But they’re also vital to the DNA of the flick, because that’s what people are really connecting with. And if you’re on the inside, if you’re in the club, then you’re gonna have fun seeing them.
io9: On the topic of references, I have one specific thing I have to ask about. The lead actress, Allison Pittel, I couldn’t help but notice her character, Selena, looked to me like a super popular Disney YouTuber named Jenny Nicholson. Am I totally off on that?
LaMorte: That is not who she is supposed to be. Sorry.
io9: Okay, I figured as much but had to ask. That would have been the deepest cut of all time.
LaMorte: So there’s one in there that we had to change last minute. There’s some that didn’t make it into the movie, of course. And there are certain things that either we shot and didn’t use, or that we didn’t end up shooting because how many jokes can we tell before [it’s too much]? So there’s some stuff that didn’t make it in. But there’s one where [SPOILER REDACTED] was originally supposed to be, I don’t remember her name, but the first Mouseketeer. We had the name of the woman, but legal wouldn’t clear it because she’s a real person. So we had to change it. But that was one we’re like, “Oh, that’s such a missed opportunity to have the original Mouseketeer [in the movie].”
io9: But you did manage to get a very cool Steamboat Willy-esque animated sequence in there. I won’t spoil any specifics of it, but can you tell me a little bit more about the origin of that, how it developed, and got into the movie?
LaMorte Definitely. Well, it was important to me the fact that Steamboat Willie was locked away, that this character has been unable to be used for such a long period of time, [and to] factor [that] into the story. And I knew it was an organic way to explain why our character doesn’t look like the cartoon, because he’s got some mileage on him. He’s been locked away for a long period of time. And we had some big ideas as far as what we wanted to show and how we wanted to do it. And of course, we’re at an independent film. And we said, “Well, if he’s an animated character, the best way to connect these two would be to show him as he once was, the version that we all know as he was created back in the early 1900s.” And then use this animated sequence to tell the story, do it in a style that pays homage to the way that he was originally drawn… And while I don’t know if we would have approval about what we’re doing with the character. I think we would at least get some brownie points for bringing back the old animation style and honoring the classic character and his creator.
io9: Another style question. When I saw the trailers, for some reason, I thought Willie was a full-sized creature. So I was a little confused watching the movie when I realized he’s actually Mickey Mouse-sized. I know you used a lot of different techniques to achieve that ,but I’m wondering if his size was ever a major consideration?
LaMorte: Once we started developing the script, the decision came in pretty early on that he was going to be small. Because once you start looking at character designs, not in terms of how Steamboat Willie exists as a drawing or in a cartoon, but how he exists in the real world, we had to look to that very famous statue, “The Partners,” where Walt Disney is standing and he’s got his arm out and next to him is Mickey Mouse. So that gave us a sense of like, “If he’s going to be small and he’s not going to be a theme park mascot, a human size, then he has to be really small.”
And we’ve seen Chucky and we’ve seen Leprechaun, so there have been small killer creatures in the past, and it’s been done very effectively many, many times. But I knew if he was going to be a live-action cartoon character, I thought there were just going to be some limits to doing it anyway, other than shrinking a full-size animated human down.
Check back next week for more on LaMorte on the challenges of working within the legal guardrails of public domain characters. Screamboat is in theaters April 2. Learn more here.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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