Disney has been relative free from bad PR moves the last decade more or less. In fact beyond them firing and then a year or two rehiring James Gunn to direct Guardians of Galaxy 3 ; the company hasn't had anything bad hit. Well the missile just landed and its gaining steam as Disney is likely taking a HUGE hit off this one. Because in no way will the company be able to spin this one. Not with what we have seen given the terrible response they did.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/feat...x6a-story.html
Four-year-old Ollie Jones' favorite superhero was Spider-Man, before he died. His father, Lloyd, wanted to honor his son with the famed wall crawler's image featured on his tombstone.
The Walt Disney Company rejected that idea, according to an article by The Sun, an English publication.
Ollie passed away in December due to a rare genetic disorder, leukodystrophy, which affects the neural anatomy of a person in a variety of ways.
After Ollie passed, Lloyd, 36, tried to purchase an etching of the superhero for his son’s gravestone, but due to copyright, his request was denied, The Sun reported.
Disney explained in a letter to Lloyd that it did not want the character associated with death — a policy Disney claimed had been the case since Walt Disney’s lifetime, The Sun reported.
Ollie’s funeral procession was led by a person dressed as Spider-Man, and the “Webhead” was featured on Ollie’s coffin as well, The Sun reported.
The Sun article basically expanded on it. In fact lets mock this bullshit reply with some comical facts.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/944145...e-ollie-jones/
A representative from The Walt Disney Company’s permissions department wrote: “We extend our sincere condolences. If we played a small part in Ollie’s happiness we are honoured.
“Generations of fans have responded to our characters with the same wonder and delight that Ollie did. In fact, many believe the characters to be real.
“We have striven to preserve the same innocence and magic around our characters that brought Ollie such joy.
Innocence being that he slapped his wife years ago in a comics scene , helped let his then wife make a deal with a devil and so forth. I mean we can go on for more instances . Your characters as a whole have killed , been killed , worked alongside villains and did more Non-Innocent things in comics and films.
Yet a kids tombstone , nope THAT IS A LINE ...WE CAN NOT CROSS !
Disney then explain this image and link that has a faux gravestone image of Walt Disney with the park logo ?
“For that reason, we follow a policy that began with Walt Disney himself that does not permit the use of characters on headstones, cemetery or other memorial markers or funeral urns."
http://www.mousesteps.com/extra-feat...te-decorations
So basically a kid who loved the character , who fought bravely like the heroes he idolized is told after his death he can't be honored that way. What a sack of horse shit. Hold on I'll let a lot of us sum up our feelings for Disney right now.
Honestly the company should do the right thing , someone should contact that family to apologize. Allow the headstone and make it as a company after this. Hell go even further and have Holland appear as Spider-Man with family.
Hopefully this stays in the news and reporters question this at San Diego Comic Con so Disney can respond better.