Either somebody hit their head on the way to work yesterday, or Disney are trying to replicate the ride-to-film franchise success they experienced with Pirates of the Caribbean in new, weird ways. Not with a particularly cinematic ride, mind you: they’ve unveiled plans to start working on a Big Thunder Mountain television series, which is (if you’ve ever rode Big Thunder Mountain) extremely perplexing to a human of normal brain capacity.
For those who don’t know what in tarnation we’re talking about, Big Thunder Mountain is a rollercoaster “steam train” built into a fake mountain at DisneyWorld theme parks: loose plot points such as gold mining and yellow-bellied varmints attract the attention of your eyes as you race around, dodging canyons and other desert-themed obstacles.
Given that the American West isn’t exactly the most popular genre nowadays (since, like, 1992), this idea is coming off like a disgruntled executive’s final finger to the man (the man being Walt Disney, we suppose) as he green-lights it two weeks before retirement. Yet somebody has been charged with sifting a story out of this ride, and that somebody is actually two people: Jason Fachs and Chris Morgan will write and direct and produce the show for ABC. The show’s only hope is that it is exactly like Deadwood in the way that it is actually Deadwood and Disney are yanking our chains ’cause they’re so thrilled with that LucasFilm acquirement that they can just, you know, joke now. And I absolutely don’t believe a word of what I’m writing.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
