Is Mickey Mouse public domain? What is new horror movie - which other famous characters are out of copyright?

Mickey Mouse entered the public domain on New Year’s Day 2024, when Disney’s copyright on the original version of the character expired.

Mickey Mouse first appeared in the 1928 eight minute long animation Steamboat Willie, about mischievous deckhand Mickey Mouse. The first Disney film to be distributed and one of the first ever cartoons to be produced with synchronised sound, it was made for less than $5,000. The humble short launched a studio now worth billions of dollars and with influence across the globe.

For such an iconic character, it’s not surprising that within hours of it entering public domain, Mickey Mouse was co-opted for use in features not connected to Disney. However, not all versions of Mickey are in the public domain, it is only the character’s name and his appearance in the earliest features he appeared in that are fair game following the expiration of copyright 95 years after Steamboat Willie was released.

Is there a Mickey Mouse horror film in the works?

Yes, as was the case with Winnie the Pooh when the A. A. Milne character and his buddies entered public domain in 2022, Mickey also looks set to appear in at least one slasher horror film.

Freelance film producer Steven LaMorte, who previously directed The Grinch comedy horror parody The Mean One, will also helm the as yet untitled horror flick based on the Steamboat Willie story. It will follow Mickey, a sadistic mouse who terrorises unsuspecting passengers on his ferry. A posted for the film was released less than a day after the mouse became public property, and production on the film is expected to get underway in the first half of the year.

Into Frame Productions have gone further, releasing a full trailer for Mickey's Mouse Trap, billed at the 'first ever Mickey Mouse horror film'. In this film a killer dressed as Mickey Mouse stalks a woman through an arcade on the evening of her 21st birthday.

Which other popular characters are now in the public domain?

Minnie Mouse is also now public domain as the character also featured alongside Mickey in Steamboat Willie. Several of Mickey’s iconic friends are not yet in the public domain but soon will be - next year, Pluto the dog will become public domain, and in 2029 Goofy and Donald Duck will join him.

As mentioned above, Winnie the Pooh and other members of the 100 Acre Wood including Piglet and Eeyore are in the public domain, and Tigger followed on the same day as Mickey Mouse. The 2023 horror film Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, saw Pooh and Piglet embark on a bloody rampage after Christopher Robin abandoned them to go off to college.

Some versions of Peter Pan are also in the public domain - though in the UK, royalties from stage performances and publications including films is owned by Great Ormond Street Hospital  in perpetuity. The copyright for stage and play versions of Pan expired in the US at the start of the year, but the character’s design in the 1953 Disney film will remain protected by copyright 2049.