Disney+ Cancels Upcoming Series Featuring Fan-Favorite Character

At one point, Disney+ was developing a series featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, one of the first characters ever developed by the late Walt Disney. Over Christmas weekend, however, the creatives behind that series suggested on Twitter their version of the show is no longer in development. Long-time animation filmmaker Matt Danner revealed his team was well into development before the Mouse put the kibosh on the operation.

“[Then Disney CEO Bob] Iger was very serious about it,” Danner tweeted. “The LEgend of the Three Caballeros team was going to follow up with an Oswald show for streaming. Scripts written, designs done, animation test in hand, and a pilot in production. It was beautiful1 Then we got broken up and scattered to the wind.”

Disney created the character in 1927, but his rights were owned by Universal. Fast Forward 80-some years and Iger eventually acquired the rights to the character again after NBC approached the company about the contract of longtime play-by-play announcer Al Michaels. Disney essentially traded Michaels’ contract for the trademark to the character.

“Don’t be sad about this,” Danner added. “Oswald has A LOT of love within Disney. I just wanted to share how serious that love is. I’m sure there will be an Oswald project coming your way in the near future.”

The filmmaker did confirm that while his take on the series isn’t in development, something else could be in the works to reintroduce the character to the masses.

“Lots of people jumping to conclusions here. No one is saying there is no Oswald content in development. Just saying MY TEAM’S version has not been in development for a few years,” he concluded. “I wanted to share how passionate and serious myself and the folks at Disney are about Oswald.”

Oswald appeared in two dozen shorts for Disney before being dealt to Universal. Once Iger made the move to reacquire the character’s rights once again, the character was then added to Disney’s Epic Mickey video game franchise. The Kingdom Hearts team wanted to include the character at one point or another, but Disney opted to deny usage.

Since then, the character has had a sizable presence in Disney theme parks around the world.