Recently, people have been asking about Disney buying the rights to the Bible. Of course, that caught the attention of one of our writers, Mike, who sent it to me for a new article. So, did Disney buy the rights to the Bible?

Is it true? No. I could find nothing to substantiate the claims other than obvious parody articles.

Does anyone own the Bible?

No one can own the Bible, right? Actually, one can own versions of the Bible.

Commercial rights holders own various versions of the Bible. For example, the NIV version of the Bible belongs to Zondervan (HarperCollins)in North America. The King James Version is owned by The Crown, part of the Great Britain Royal Family’s collection of companies. 

But Disney has not, that I can find evidence of, purchased any rights to commonly used versions of the Bible. 

Where did the story come from?

It seems that this rumor has been circulating since at least 2015. The first version I found was from The Return of the Modern Philosopher. They posted an article claiming that Disney would reboot the Bible with JK Rowling being chosen to write the reboot or sequel. 

“According to those with insider knowledge, Disney plans to not only add a third testament to join the Old and New ones, but they also intend to turn that yet-to-be-named testament (The Holy Spirit Awakens, anyone???) into a trilogy of Summer Blockbuster films. J. K. Rowling is the front runner to write the newest testament, and this former Catholic School Boy thinks the Sorting Hat did a proper job with that selection.”

Later on, the Babylon Bee, another parody site, also did a story on this in 2018, claiming Disney would make 37 sequels to the scriptures. They claimed Disney paid over $7 billion from its author, which, of course, couldn’t be possible. 

“That exciting new franchise launch will be followed by around 36 more planned sequels, reboots, remakes, and spin-offs, the company said. While some of the stories will follow the overarching plot of God establishing his Kingdom, other stories will be offshoots of characters and worlds within the biblical narrative such as Shamgar: A Judges Story, Rise of Habakkuk, Song of Solomon 2: Gaza Heat, and Dirty Job, a gritty follow up to the book of Job starring Mike Rowe.”

They also joked that Disney would add more diversity to the Bible by race or gender-swapping characters:

“Disney also stated plans to convert a large portion of existing biblical characters into more underrepresented minorities. For instance, there are already talks of making Moses a mysterious purple-haired woman who is chased by robotic pharaohs through a dystopian cyberpunk Egypt. Other conversations have included remaining King David into a woman named Lady David. “Lady David would be this time-travelling sexy alien ninja taking out undead Philistines with her crossbow,” said creative executive Amy Robeson.”

While this rumor could seem plausible to some people, given that Disney tends to buy up everything, given Disney’s current political leanings, it would be doubtful they would ever consider this. Even though Dreamworks did make a highly successful animated film based on the Biblical story of Moses with “The Prince of Egypt.” Then, starting in 1998, they released another 16 Bible-based films direct to video, including  “Joseph King of Dreams” (based on Joseph) in 2000. 

I do not think this rumor is true but never say never.

What do you think? Comment and let us know!

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