Disney legend Jim Cummings isn’t exactly thrilled about being left out of the new Darkwing Duck reboot headed to Disney+
In a new interview while on the red carpet for Coyote vs Acme, Cummings was asked about his involvement with the project and while he was polite, his word choice definitely let his feelings be known.
When asked about the status, Cummings stated, "I did a pilot for it several years ago, to see the viability of it coming back, and everybody went nuts. And they are bringing it back, and they’re hiring somebody else to do Terry McGovern’s role of Launchpad, and they’re hiring somebody else to be Darkwing Duck. I hope they get…everything they deserve. Crazy, I don’t know what to tell you."
"I hope they get…everything they deserve," makes it clear that Cummings isn't pleased to be left out in the cold.
And speaking of frigid temps, Disney has been giving Cummings the cold shoulder recently. Fans are wondering why he hasn't been officially honored as a Disney Legend at D23 yet, with a resume that dwarfs some recent inductees.
Cummings' Disney career spans 40+ years, with the actor voicing notable characters such as Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Mickey Mouse rival Pete, Shere Khan and Don Karnage from TaleSpin, Bonkers D. Bobcat and several others.
Fans are now suspecting that there's some sort of rift between Cummings and Disney and this latest decision to recast Cummings after having him voice the role in a pilot lends credence to that notion.
It's speculated that the Darkwing Duck reboot is picking up from the 2017 DuckTales reboot, which reimagined the original 1990s Darkwing Duck cartoon as a fictional program within that universe. The show ended up inspiring a real Duckburg citizen to take up the mantle of Darkwing Duck.
In that episode, Cummings played the actor who starred in the show, while Chris Diamantopoulos voiced the character that becomes the "real-life" crimefighter.
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are reportedly producing the series, which was first announced in 2020.
While rumors swirled over the years that Disney had scrapped the show entirely, it turns out the studio actually just sent it back to the drawing board. They disbanded the original writers' room and brought in a fresh team to rebuild the concept from the ground up.
Early pitch details pointed to a grittier sequel where an aging Drake Mallard comes out of retirement, in a move reminiscent of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.
Now that a new creative group is steering the ship, fans think Disney is ditching that dark-future premise to align with the 2017 DuckTales reboot instead. That two-part episode of the reboot was well-received but is it a concept that warrants an entire series?