Filmmakers Put R-Rated Message to Disney in Their Disney Film

Disney is the king of Easter eggs. Disney’s latest film, Wish (2023), was essentially a two-hour Easter Egg to the 100 years of Disney Animation Studios. Pixar has managed to tie together its entire universe with the Planet Pizza truck and A113. But most of Disney and Pixar’s Easter Eggs are primarily benign and meant for the fun of the audience and people on social media.

But the filmmakers behind Inspector Gadget (1999) added some not-so-subtle messages to show their anger with Walt Disney Studios. The writers behind the film, Bruno Bianchi, Andy Heyward, and Jean Chalopin, were stuck in movie limbo after they wrote their script. Initially, Brendan Fraser was set to play the title character, but the film took so long to develop that he moved on to other projects.

In the 1990s, there were several remakes of television shows, so momentum picked up for a while to remake the original series. But for the filmmakers, there was no progress on bringing it to the big screen.

The Inspector Gadget cartoon was initially owned by DIC Entertainment, which the Walt Disney Company purchased in 1995. After Disney bought the company, it fast-tracked the Inspector Gadget films starring Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Joely Fisher, and Rubert Everett. The filmmakers got a $90 million budget and went to work on their long-await film.

But that didn’t end the problems for the film version of the animated series. When test audiences saw the 110-minute version of the film, it was a disaster. Walt Disney Pictures forced Bruno Bianchi, Andy Heyward, and Jean Chalopin to cut the film to 76 minutes.

But that was not the end of it. The filmmakers decided they would get revenge on Disney using a Disney film. In a montage scene showing Inspector Gadget’s great deeds, there are a bunch of newspaper clippings.

When the Disney movie was out of theaters, and audiences could slow it down, they could see the not-so-subtle messages to Walt Disney Studios. The vertical newspaper print in one scene reads, “F*** Disney.”

Another scene takes a shot at Arthur F. Repola, who was in charge of the special effects for the film. Again, the vertical newspaper print reads, “Art Repola can b*** me the cheap arrogant jerk off a** wipe tight wad idiot he sucks.”

The reviews for the films were awful, and it only made $134.4 million at the box office. Walt Disney Studios ended up losing around $30 million on the flop. Despite the low box office numbers, there was a direct-to-video sequel in 2003 and a reboot of the original series in 2015.

Suffice it to say that would be the last time that any of the creators of Inspector Gadget would work with Disney Studios.