In its search for quality concepts for movies and television, Disney has started mining new territory: theme parks. Pirates of the Carribean is a hugely successful franchise, its four films grossing over three-and-a-half billion dollars at the box office. Tomorrowland is being developed by writer Damon Lindelof and director Brad Bird as a starring vehicle for George Clooney. And last year Disney pursued a live-action drama inspired by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the mine train roller coaster ride located in Frontierland at several Disney parks across the world.
Unfortunately Big Thunder wasn’t picked up to series, but since it was passed on we’ve learned a bit about the pilot and the big plans the creators had for it. Here are ten things we know about the Big Thunder Mountain TV show.
1. The story
Image © Disney
The logline for Big Thunder was: “When a brilliant, late 19th century New York doctor and his family are given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relocate to a frontier mining town run by a powerful, but mysterious tycoon, they quickly realize that not everything in Big Thunder is as it seems.” The family was composed of the doctor dad, a loving mom, a sulky teen daughter, and an asthmatic young son, and the central mystery of the show revolved around a mountain spirit that possessed a mine train on Thunder Mountain.
2. The writer lied to get the job
Image © Nerdist Industries.
In an interview on the Nerdist Writers Panel podcast, Jason Fuchs, who wrote the pilot, told host Ben Blacker that when he was pitching for the job, Disney asked him if he’d ever ridden Thunder Mountain. Fuchs hadn’t, but concocted a story on the spot about how the ride was a special part of his childhood that he and his dad rode it every summer. After he was hired to write the pilot, he watched a video that shows the experience of riding Big Thunder Mountain over and over again. He also did some hands-on research, which leads to the next fact…
3. The writer got vertigo from riding Big Thunder Mountain too many times
Image © Disney.
Jason Fuchs went to Disneyland and rode Big Thunder repeatedly to capture what makes it special in his script. He rode it so many times that he woke up the next day with benign positional vertigo. It took two weeks for the room to stop spinning.
4. The series was meant to be a companion to Once Upon A Time
Image © Disney.
When Disney commissioned Big Thunder, it was looking for something similar in tone to Once Upon A Time, a popular TV show about fairy tale characters brought to life in a town called Storybrooke. Like Once Upon A Time, Big Thunder would have likely been placed at 8/7 central on ABC, known as the family hour. The series was clearly something someone of any age could watch. However…
5. Big Thunder was a show for grown-ups, too
Image © Disney.
The feel of the show was very influenced by the ABC series Lost and the Indiana Jones movies, both of which are popular among adults. A big discussion Fuchs had with executives was how to maintain an 8/7 central tone but still hold on to the energy of a show like Lost or Revolution. Disney actually encouraged the writer to make the show a little darker, so that Big Thunder would be a show adults could watch alongside their children.
6. The show had a big overarching mythology
Jason Fuchs was very inspired by Lost when writing the pilot for Big Thunder. Like the creators did for Lost, Jason Fuchs built his series around a big central mystery that would be compelling for viewers of all ages. That mystery would have unfolded over time as the series progressed. It was a bold decision to do an hour-long pilot with a central mystery, but Fuchs was eager to tell an ambitious story. It’s too bad we weren’t able to see that come to fruition.
7. Each episode would have focused on the doctor’s duties
Image © Disney.
While there was a bigger story at play, Big Thunder was also a medical procedural, meaning that most episodes would contain cases the main character would have to solve. Frontier medicine wasn’t nearly as advanced as the medicine we have now, so the problems the characters needed to solve and the solutions would be a lot different than on other medical shows like House or Grey’s Anatomy. The core of most episodes would have revolved around the big city doctor taking care of patients in the small mining town his family moved to.
8. Some big names were attached to the series
Image © Disney.
Big Thunder had a lot going for it with several influential moviemakers involved in its creation. It was executive-produced by Melissa Rosenberg, who penned the five-film Twilight franchise. Another executive producer was Chris Morgan, writer of movies like Wanted and the Fast and the Furious series. On the acting side, Big Thunder nabbed Irish actor Ed MacLiam, popular in the United Kingdom for his role on the hit show EastEnders. The impressive pedigree of the cast and crew, among other things, leads to the next fact.
9. It was a big surprise that Big Thunder wasn’t picked up to series
Image © Disney
Several media outlets expected Big Thunder to air on ABC. On the Nerdist Writer’s Panel host Ben Blacker seemed confident that the show would move forward when in conversation with Jason Fuchs. Additionally, popular Hollywood website and magazine Vulture named Big Thunder one of the 10 most promising network pilots of 2013. Nevertheless, at the 2013 May upfronts ABC did not include Big Thunder on its fall schedule.
10. Big Thunder is only one of numerous attempts to bring theme park attractions alive as stories
Image © Disney.
After the massive success of Pirates of the Caribbean, no way is Disney going to stop developing their theme park attractions for other media. As I mentioned, the film Tomorrowland is in the works for a May 2015 release date. In addition, the Disney-owned Marvel is publishing some great comics about hidden Disney gems. The first, Seekers of the Weird, is a story that takes place in Imagineer Rolly Crump’s never built “Museum of the Weird” attraction that would have served as a supernatural relic-filled add-on to The Haunted Mansion circa 1965. And, coming soon, Marvel is bringing EPCOT Center’s “Journey Into Imagination” attraction to the page with the Disney Kingdoms series Figment.
While it’s sad that Big Thunder didn’t make it into our living rooms, it certainly had an interesting journey in its pursuit to the small screen. And remember, there’s a lot more Disney Park-themed content coming our way. I’ll explore it more in the weeks to come.
