For all its success in other areas, Disney has struggled to turn its theme park rides into hit movies. Even the studio's Pirates of the Caribbean films have seen diminished returns at the box office in recent years, with all but 2003's The Curse of the Black Pearl earning mixed to negative reviews from critics. The House of Mouse is hoping to change that by joining forces with Battlestar Galactica and For All Mankind's Ron Moore to create a franchise of streaming projects for Disney+ based on its Magic Kingdom rides and lands. However, this isn't the first time Moore has tried to adapt Disney's theme park attractions for the screen.
In Nov. 2010, Variety reported Moore had written the script for a Magic Kingdom movie based on his own pitch. Although Disney passed on his idea, it subsequently recruited Jon Favreau to oversee the project's continued development, with Michael Chabon (Spider-Man 2, John Carter) coming aboard to write the screenplay. During an interview conducted in July 2012, the film was revealed as following a family who enter what Favreau described as an "alternate reality" version of Disney's Magic Kingdom. "It’s informed by everything that I remember and know about the park from going there since I was a small child," Favreau said at the time.
Favreau was expected to direct the film adaptation of the Jersey Boys stage musical before Magic Kingdom, but ended up passing on the project to go make his critically-acclaimed indie comedy/drama Chef in 2014. However, rather than returning to Magic Kingdom after that, Favurea moved on to direct Disney's live-action/CGI remake of The Jungle Book, followed by the digital re-imagining of The Lion King. He also created The Mandalorian in-between those two movies and will continue to act as showrunner when the series returns for Season 3, while at the same time serving as an executive producer on the upcoming The Book of Boba Fett, Rangers of the New Republic and Ahsoka spinoffs.
As busy as Favreau has been for the last several years, that probably isn't the main reason Disney abandoned its plans for a Magic Kingdom movie. The film entered development at a time when the studio was continuously trying and failing to launch a lucrative new franchise, resulting in such costly box office misfires as John Carter and The Lone Ranger. This was also when Disney realized just how much demand there was for live-action/CGI remakes of its animated classics, starting with 2010's Alice in Wonderland and continuing on to Maleficent and Cinderella's success in 2014 and 2015, respectively. So, rather than push forward with another comparatively risky tentpole, the studio moved Magic Kingdom to the back-burner and began to focus almost exclusively on its live-action retellings.
More recently, the increased demand for streaming-exclusive titles has led to Disney green-lighting all manner of projects for Disney+, many of which were announced at the studio's Investors Day event in 2020. It has also resulted in seemingly canceled ventures like Magic Kingdom being dusted off and repurposed for Disney's streaming platform. What's more, the House of Mouse clearly believes there's potential for a lot more than a single project based on its Magic Kingdom attractions, especially with Moore leading the charge under his newly-set production deal with Disney's 20th Television. It might've taken a decade longer than expected, but it seems Moore will get to re-imagine Disney's most famous theme park rides for the screen after all.