A new rumor has appeared that Disney is working on an adaptation of that RPG series it has been making with Square Enix.
As shared by ScreenTime on Twitter, Daniel Richtman, who bills himself as ”A Twitter influencer and writer” on his own Twitter account, has revealed a rumor that Disney is making an adaptation of Kingdom Hearts. We don’t know if this will be a movie or a show, or for that matter, if it will be fully animated, or Walt forbid, a mix of live action and animation.
Kingdom Hearts, originally published in 2002 on the PlayStation 2, is an action RPG series where the characters travel between levels across different worlds based on different Disney properties. As you may have already heard, Kingdom Hearts has such a layered and convoluted backstory that many of its own fans don’t even understand it.
But the general scenario is that an original character named Sora picks up a weapon called the Keyblade, and travels across these different Disney levels, accompanied by no less than Donald and Goofy. Sora and his friends fight an original threat called The Heartless, a physical manifestation of the darkness in people’s hearts. And that’s as far as we should need to know to understand Kingdom Hearts as a whole.
When Square Enix first worked with Disney to make Kingdom Hearts, through their then-gaming division called Buena Vista Games, it was the largest risk that Disney had made in video games. While we fondly remember many certified 8-bit and 16-bit Disney IP classics, such as Aladdin, Ducktales, and Castle of Illusion, in Disney’s eyes their video game division hadn’t really been a huge success like their movies and shows had been.
As we know now, Kingdom Hearts has become one of the most successful video game franchises of all time, rivalling Final Fantasy itself as Square Enix’s premiere franchise. Now, what many fans still don’t fully understand is that Disney owns Kingdom Hearts completely, and Square Enix is technically only the developer making these games.
This was the arrangement Square Enix agreed to when making the franchise, and it stands in contrast to other such deals. For example, Nintendo formed a new entity called The Pokemon Company, so that game developers Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures, would be equal owners of the Pokemon franchise.
The truth is, Disney has been mostly hands off on the Kingdom Hearts franchise. While they work closely to make sure the depiction of their characters and settings fit their standards, Disney has allowed Square Enix to make the games and its story as the Japanese studio saw fit, for better or worse.
If the rumor is true, it’s the first time Disney is actually taking advantage of their actual ownership of the IP. Disney-fying Kingdom Hearts‘ story will likely mean making the story easier to follow, and maybe, if we’re lucky enough, Disney’s producers will actually invest in making this a major franchise.
We somewhat got a crossover animated movie already in Wreck-It-Ralph, but it would certainly be something else to get that big crossover movie in Kingdom Hearts.
And, of course, Sora must have his “I want” Disney hero song.
