Disney Is Once Again Trying To Turn A Classic Theme Park Ride Into A Movie — But Will It Work This Time?

Disney has been a little obsessed with turning its various theme park attractions into movies ever since “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” kicked off a $4.5 billion franchise more than 20 years ago. That was a long time ago and, in the years since, they’ve had far more failures than successes on that front. “Mission to Mars,” “The Country Bears,” “Tomorrowland,” and two different “Haunted Mansion” movies have failed to deliver commercially. The studio has perhaps lost more money on those flops than it ever made from “Pirates.”

On the one hand, it’s easy to see why Disney sees value in trying to turn these attractions into movie franchises. When they hit, they hit big. But when they fail, they fail really big. “Space Mountain” would presumably be a big sci-fi adventure. That kind of movie doesn’t come cheap. However, this could give the powers that be an excuse to pour money into a revamp of the ride itself, which is decades old at this point and could use some work. That’s speculative but it would potentially come with the territory.

It is, at this stage, hard to know what the holdup is regarding this movie. Max Landis (“Chronicle”) wrote a “Space Mountain” movie that he sold to Disney in 2012, but that never got off the ground. Is it that Disney is just nervous about spending big money on what will essentially be an original sci-fi movie, which is a big gamble to make? It’s hard to say but what’s important here is that the Mouse House is still trying, so they certainly believe it’s worth chasing.

The “Space Mountain” movie does not currently have a release date.