Today Disney+ sees the debut of a brand new series, Prop Culture, which tracks down many of the original props used in popular Disney films like Marry Poppins and Tron. The first season covers eight episodes, and so, there are certainly a lot more Disney movies that could be investigated by the series, and Prop Culture producer and host Dan Lanigan already has a list of the films he'd like to cover if Prop Culture is given a Season 2.
The movies covered by Season 1 of Prop Culture are all live-action Disney movies that were released under the Disney banner. However, Disney is now so much bigger than that, and when I had a chance to speak with host Dan Lanigan last week, he told me that if another season becomes a reality, he'd like to cover movies from the other studios that Disney owns, like Fox and Lucasfilm, among others. According to Lanigan...
I’m hoping we’ll be able to do some Fox films. Like Home Alone, I would love to do that, Edward Scissorhands. I would love to do Dragonslayer. There’s a lot of great people and stories behind that. That’s also a Paramount co-production so that might not be a Disney+ available film. You know, Hocus Pocus we’d love to do. We’d love to do Raiders [of the Lost Ark] we’d love to do Star Wars.
There are some great possibilities here. With the addition of the 20th Century Fox (Now 20th Century Studios) film library, there are a bunch of great movies that could be explored in future Prop Culture episodes. Home Alone is one of those movies that everybody loves. And with a new Hocus Pocus movie on the way for Disney+, an episode of the show that looks at the original, which is still incredibly popular among a certain fan base, feels like something a lot of people would love to see.
One of the criteria for episodes of Prop Culture is that they had to focus on movies that Dan Lanigan himself was a fan of. Dragonslayer is even brought up in an episode of the show's first season as one of the host's favorite films. Although, as Lanigan mentions here, that one might be a tough sell. While Disney had the distribution rights to the film internationally, in North America, the film is technically a Paramount production and so it seems unlikely the film would release on Disney+.
On the plus side, the idea of a second season of Prop Culture isn't simply a pipe dream on behalf of the host. He told me that the folks at Disney were already interested in doing another season of the show while the first season was being produced, but whether that happens will all depend on the response the first season gets from the viewers...
The people we’ve talked to at Disney want to do a second season. It just comes down to how successful it is.
Fans of Disney movies who want to learn more about their favorite films are almost sure to like Prop Culture. While the show focuses on the props used in the films, that's really only part of the history you'll learn about regarding films from Mary Poppins to The Muppet Movie.
Prop Culture is on Disney+ now with all eight Season 1 episodes available for streaming.
