While the Disney corporation has come in for a lot of criticism for the way it has essentially cornered childhood, owning the rights to Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and it’s ever popular Princesses™, it is also well known for producing pitch-perfect family entertainment. But after decades of scarring children by killing off characters’ parents, it has just been revealed that there are now three plot devices that are contractually outlawed by the House of Mouse.
As explained by Chris Lowery, the director of the critically-acclaimed remake of Pete’s Dragon, when directors sign on with Disney to bring a project from page to screen, they have to agree to tow the line on the following three things.
“When you sign a contract with Disney, the thing it says your film cannot have are beheadings, impalements, or smoking,” Lowery told Ain’t It Cool News. “Those are literally the three things you are not allowed to put into a Disney film... They literally have those words in the contract as things you’re not allowed to do.”
These creative restrictions, while understandable for films that push for a PG certificate at the most extreme, do at least appear to have evolved over time. In 1940’s Pinocchio, one scene features young boys smoking cigars (as well as swigging beer and playing pool, which results in them terrifyingly turning into donkeys). And in 1989’s The Little Mermaid, credited with relaunching Disney as an animation powerhouse, the villain Ursula comes to an untimely end when a wrecked ship is used to impale her.
