Toy Story 3 Forced The Monkey Director to Change Horror Movie

Neon’s upcoming The Monkey is based on a 1980 short story from Stephen King, and while some changes are made, one in particular came due to copyrights owned by Disney.

What did Osgood Perkins say about The Monkey’s change?

Speaking to SFX Magazine in a recent interview (via Games Radar), director Osgood Perkins revealed that, as The Monkey was developing, he was told that Disney actually owned the rights to the original look of the monkey, which was modeled after a wind-up doll that clanged cymbals together.

Due to the character appearing in Toy Story 3, Perkins was forced to develop a different look for their titular villain.

“When I was given the assignment, the producer said, ‘Oh, by the way, Disney owns the cymbals, because of [the toy monkey in] Toy Story,’” Perkins said. “So it [couldn’t] be cymbals. What if it was a drum? It’s one of those things where a limitation becomes an opportunity. If you’re making movies and you’re not up for that adage then you’re in real trouble! ‘I was like, ‘Hey, that’s awesome. The drum is better.’ The drum is like a marching drum. It’s like, ‘Drum roll, please!’ before something happens. That’s better than cymbals. So thanks, Disney. I prefer it!”

The Monkey will be released in United States theaters on February 21, 2025, from Neon.

“In The Monkey, when twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them,” a description of the movie reads, per Deadline. “The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them.”

The Monkey stars Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy. Oz Perkins wrote the script for the movie, while James Wan serves as a producer alongside Michael Clear, Jason Cloth, and Dave Caplan. Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Fred Berger, Chris Ferguson, Peter Luo, Nancy Xu, and John Friedberg serve as executive producers.

(Source: Games Radar)