I expect that one day we will learn of a secret mandate contained in Walt Disney's last will and testament that decreed that every inch of Disney-owned property must eventually be turned into a blockbuster movie of some fashion by the year 2020. After all, how else do we explain the sudden proliferation of theme-park-ride-based movies coming out of the House of Mouse? Besides the juggernaut that has been the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Guillermo del Toro is making another Haunted Mansion movie (presumably erasing the Eddie Murphy joint from the tome of cinematic history in the process), Tim Allen and Tom Hanks are going to be in something based on the Jungle Cruise ride, somebody is doing something involving the Enchanted Tiki Room, and Jon Favreau and Michael Chabon are even working on a movie based on the whole damned Magic Kingdom.
Go ahead and add a Matterhorn movie to that collection, too. The Hollywood Reporter, uh, reports that screenwriter Jason Dean Hall has been hired to write The Hill, a story of five adventurers who are invited to climb the famed Matterhorn mountain under "mysterious circumstances," and then run into Yetis at some point. So it's exactly like the ride, except not really. Well, there are Yetis in both. So there's that.
Eventually Disney is going to run out of rides to make movies about, but that will likely lead to them just looking to other areas for inspiration. I can just picture it now: A movie based on the Funnel Cake stand near Tomorrowland starring Kevin James as a Funnel Cake stand employee, and Katherine Heigl as a failed actress-turned-Disneyland Cinderella who becomes James' would-be love interest thanks to the romantic advice from a talking Funnel Cake, voiced by Will Smith. It'll be like The Legend of Bagger Vance meets The Zookeeper meets something with Katherine Heigl in it.
I'll take cash or check, Disney, but make that check out to cash. It's a tax thing.
