"Something Wicked This Way Comes" Finally Arrives On Disney+, Bringing with It the Legacy of Ray Bradbury

As a child of the 80s (actually born in December of 1979, so I lived through the entire decade), creepy kids’ movies from that period are kind of my thing. I’m talking about stuff like The Dark Crystal, The NeverEnding Story, The Witches, The Secret of NIMH, Disney’s Return to Oz, and another movie that was made and released by Walt Disney Studios (via its Buena Vista distribution arm) in 1983 that probably had a big part in scarring my psyche to this day: namely Something Wicked This Way Comes, which has finally arrived on Disney+. Let’s talk about why this movie is important to the legacy of both Disney and its legendary writer Ray Bradbury.

The 1962 novel Something Wicked This Way comes was written by Bradbury, and focuses on two young teenage boys whose small town is invaded by a nightmarish traveling carnival, under the demented leadership of a villain known only as Mr. Dark (played wonderfully sinisterly by Jonathan Pryce in the movie). Two years after the novel’s publication, Bradbury became friends with a media mogul by the name of Walt Disney– you may have heard of him– who at that point in his career had already conquered the worlds of cinema, television, and theme parks.

Evidently, Bradbury was a huge Disneyland fan, and even inquired if he could help Walt redesign Tomorrowland and the park, though Disney was reluctant to work with his new friend, citing concerns that the two geniuses would “kill each other." But after Walt’s death in late 1966, Bradbury’s relationship with the Walt Disney Company continued. The author was instrumental in the design and execution of the Spaceship Earth attraction at EPCOT Center. When the second Walt Disney World theme park opened in 1982, Bradbury had this to say: “Everyone in the world will come to these gates. Why? Because they want to look at the world of the future. They want to see how to make better human beings. That’s what the whole thing is about. The cynics are already here and they’re terrifying one another. What Disney is doing is showing the world that there are alternative ways to do things that can make us all happy. If we can borrow some of the concepts of Disneyland and Disney World and EPCOT, then indeed the world can be a better place."

Also in the 1980s, Walt Disney Studios acquired the rights to make a film based on Something Wicked This Way Comes, and made the smart decision to include Ray Bradbury in the development and screenwriting process. Unfortunately, Bradbury had a falling out with his hand-chosen director Jack Clayton over creative differences, and the studio ended up paying an additional $4 million (on top of the existing $16 million budget) for reshoots. The movie was predominantly shot on Disney’s Golden Oak Ranch in Southern California’s Santa Clarita Valley and on the Disney Studios backlot in Burbank, with some exteriors filmed in Vermont. Despite Bradbury’s summation of the final cut as “not a great film, no, but a decently nice one," it has been embraced as a cult classic among the writer’s fans and children– myself included– of that era.

Last year, my fellow Laughing Place reporter Jeremiah Good had the opportunity to attend a screening of Something Wicked This Way Comes at the Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival, followed by a rough-cut preview of a long-in-gestation documentary entitled We Are the Autumn People about the making of the film. An update this week from filmmaker Mikayla Theone Khramov indicated that she continues to get closer to finishing the documentary, and that she has interviewed a number of people involved with the original movie.

With Ray Bradbury having passed away back in 2012, his legacy is secure as one of the great fantasy, sci-fi, and horror writers of the past century. And now that Halloween season has rolled around once again, I can’t think of a better time for Disney to have finally made Something Wicked This Way Comes available on Disney+ for a whole new generation of kids to get irreversibly messed-up by… and for my generation to reexperience. My next request would be for Disney to release a nice remaster of the movie on physical media via 4K disc, with the only Blu-ray release having been a now out-of-print 2021 Disney Movie Club exclusive. Because as troubled as the production may have been, those who admire this film deserve to be able to make it a permanent part of their collections.