Here are some new public domain titles that could become horror movies in 2025
A Farewell To Arms, A Room of One's Own, and the characters of Popeye and Tintin are all up for grabs this year.
Screenshot: Classic Comedy Channel/YouTube
In 1787, the founding fathers agreed that copyrights should only last for a limited amount of time in order to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Over two centuries later, that life-cycle now includes at least one requisite low-budget horror flick casting the newly available character as a bloodthirsty murderer. Probably not the exact sort of “useful art” the Constitutional Convention was thinking of, but progress nonetheless!
There are a ton of new characters, books, films, and songs joining Mickey Mouse and Winnie The Pooh in the public domain grab-bag this year. Copyrights for creative works typically last 95 years, which means most things published in 1929 are now available for serial killer-ification. (It also means the entire decade of the 1920s is officially up for grabs.) Tintin and Popeye are both now available, neither of whom seem like big jumps. (Tintin has traveled both to space and the bottom of the ocean—he’s definitely seen some things.)
Some major works of literature have also become available, including William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (perhaps a body-horror film?), and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (a Misery riff just waiting to happen). Mickey’s first talking appearance is also available (via The Karnival Kid) as well as the Marx Brothers’ first feature film, The Cocoanuts, Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film, Blackmail, and Disney’s first Silly Symphony short, “The Skeleton Dance.”
You can check out some more notable works that have officially entered the public domain, via Entertainment Weekly, below:
Books
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon (as serialized in Black Mask magazine)