Disney Theme Park Heist Doc Stolen Kingdom Heads to International Market

A documentary about stolen Disney World props and a half-million-dollar animatronic is going global.

BayView Entertainment picked up international rights to Stolen Kingdom, Joshua Bailey’s debut feature that digs into the seedy underworld of Disney theme park theft. The film centers on the 2018 heist of “Buzzy,” an animatronic swiped from Epcot and valued at nearly $500,000.

Bailey co-wrote the doc with Matthew Serrano of Defunctland. It traces the history of mischief and scandal at Walt Disney World, exposing a surprisingly lucrative black market for stolen props.

The film’s had a strong festival run with sold-out screenings at Big Sky, Slamdance, IFF Boston, and Florida Film Festival. Sidewalk Film Festival picked it as opening night. It hit #1 on Apple TV for new documentaries in the U.S. and screened theatrically over 150 times across the U.S. and Canada.

BayView is shopping it to international buyers at MIPCOM this month. The company’s Craig Sussman and Selena Paskalidis called it a “passion project about mischief and misdeeds” they’re eager to bring to global audiences.

Producers include Slater Wayne (Jackass Forever), Brandon Pickering, Colin Alexander, and Sam Fraser. Antenna Releasing handles North America.

For indie docs chasing niche audiences, this one found two massive ones: Disney fans and true-crime junkies.

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