Disney is finally making a movie about beloved Epcot mascot Figment
Both because of actual work from artists and from aggressive corporate acquisitions (not that there isn’t some art to writing a massive check), Disney controls possibly the greatest collection of beloved characters in the history of the world—including Mickey Mouse, Luke Skywalker, and Dr. Erik Selvig from the Thor movies. But it also has beloved characters that mostly just exist as mascots in its theme parks, like the Hatbox Ghost or the robot from “Star Tours.”
And yet none of those are as beloved as Figment, a purple dragon that—save for a few cameos—has only ever really been a thing at Disney World’s Epcot park and is never seen or mentioned in the outside world. It’s like going to watch your favorite sports team and finding out that they have a player that you can’t see on TV, but everybody is already wearing their jersey and talks about them like they’ve been around forever. “You don’t know Blingo?! He’s blocked 52 field goals from fifth base this season!”
Figment is like that. Or he was, up until this very moment, because Disney is actually going to finally make a Figment movie. That comes from Deadline, which says the movie will be produced by Seth Rogen’s Point Grey studio and will be written by Pokémon Detective Pikachu’s Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit. Seth Rogen also seems like a lock to voice the character, but that’s just us guessing.
Figment debuted as part of Epcot’s “Journey Into Imagination” ride in 1983, and Deadline notes that “various attempts to remove the ride or decrease his presence have been met with loud protests” (and Disney World fans are usually so open to the idea of things changing!). So now it seems like Disney is just leaning in to the character’s popularity and giving him a reason to exist, rather than saying “You don’t like this guy, right? You don’t mind if we kill him by bulldozing the ride he lives on and replacing it with something new about Br’er Rabbit or whatever, right?”
That’s about all we know about the project, but at least Figment fans now get to brag about how they knew him before he was a big movie star.