Kevin Smith was making a Kingdom Keepers show for Disney+

I’ve never heard of this before, but better late than never: so there is a children’s book series called Kingdom Keepers, by author Ridley Pearson. It revolves around a group of teenagers who by day work as hosts in Disney theme parks…but by night, they must fight off a group of Disney villains who have come to life. The gang, led by Maleficent (it’s always Meleficent) wants to take over the Disney empire and then the world, so the stakes are very high.

That sounds like a pretty fun goofy time. And now, it comes out that Kevin Smith — the guy behind movies like Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma — was working on adapting the books as a series on Disney+. He even wrote the thing a couple years back, it didn’t end up going forward:

"That was a blast to write 2 years ago. It was planned as one of the first shows to launch on what would become @disneyplus. Then a new exec was put in charge of the app and he killed KK. Said we used too much @Disney IP in one project (every character in the park comes to life)."

I’m not going to pretend like I wouldn’t have wanted to see that. Smith has a steel trap of a pop culture brain; I’m sure he could have done some interesting things with Disney’s vast catalog of IP.

But then again, that appears to have been the problem. It’s true that this show would have required a lot of finessing, if you really want to have Maleficent and Scar and Jafar and Cruella de Vil and the rest of the Disney rogue’s gallery running around in one show. I mean, it’s possible — the Kingdom Hearts games get it done, and there’s the book series itself, but it would probably be a pain.

Still, this would have certainly been an interesting addition to the Disney+ lineup. And the scripts are all right there. Maybe they can return to this once Disney+ has been out for a while?

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels

h/t Syfy Wire