First Pooh, now Mickey. In public domain, early Mickey Mouse version will star in horror movies

abcnews.go.com:

The earliest iteration of Mickey Mouse is on a rampage, barely two days in the public domain

LOS ANGELES — The earliest iteration of Mickey Mouse is on a rampage, barely two days in the public domain.

Slashed free of Disney's copyright as of Monday, the iconic character from “Steamboat Willie” is already the focus of two horror films. On Monday, just hours after the 1928 short entered the public domain, a trailer for “Mickey's Mouse Trap” dropped on YouTube. Another yet-to-be-titled film was announced Tuesday.

“Steamboat Willie” featured early versions of both Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, it was the third cartoon featuring the duo they made but the first to be released. In it, a more menacing Mickey, bearing more resemblance to rat than mouse, captains a boat and makes musical instruments out of other animals.

It's perhaps fitting, then, that the first projects announced are seemingly low-budget and campy slasher movies — and not unprecedented. Winnie the Pooh — sans red shirt — entered the public domain in 2022; scarcely a year later, he was notching up a heavy body count in the microbudget “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey."

In the trailer for “Mickey's Mouse Trap,” directed by Jamie Bailey, what appears to be a human in a comically small Mickey mask terrorizes a group of young people at an arcade.

“A place for fun. A place for friends. A place for hunting,” text flashed during the trailer reads. “The mouse is out.”

“We just wanted to have fun with it all. I mean it’s Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse murdering people,” director Jamie Bailey said in a statement cited by trade publications. “It’s ridiculous. We ran with it and had fun doing it and I think it shows.”

No release date has