Full-length film for Mickey?

During an interview with Disney veteran Burney Mattinson, Bleeding Cool discovered that a feature-length project for Mickey, Donald, and Goofy is in the very, very early stages of development. Mattinson, who worked on the classic Pooh pictures of the 1960s, as well as the upcoming Winnie-the-Pooh film, said in the interview:

I am working on just an idea of my own which is basically a Mickey, Donald, Goofy feature film idea. We have to present it first to the bosses to get the green light.

This hardly says anything concrete about the project or the likelihood it will get made, but it still presents an interesting observation and possibility. Up until now, I guess I never really realized or grasped the fact that Mickey and his pals have never had their own feature, but just a bunch of shorts and comics. That seems kind of ridiculous, doesn't it? The icon of a movie studio not having his own movie?! What's up with that? . . .

I s'pose it is probably because the studio doesn't want to gamble their most coveted asset and character on a high-profile feature film. After all, if they did make the film and ended up being awful, nobody would ever look at Mickey the same again, and that would seriously undermine the importance of the "symbol" of Mickey Mouse. I mean, after all, Mickey really is so much more than just a character, and I don't see how they could fit that aspect of him into a film . . .

I think another reason is that Mickey Mouse isn't an incredibly interesting character. I know that probably sounds crazy coming from a huge Disney fan like me, but it's true. Mickey is almost always happy and carefree and friendly--this results in no conflict whatsoever, which means a boring story. It's for this reason that Donald is my favorite character; Donald Duck is nothing but conflict. He is the most realistic and relatable character of the original Disney troop because he has real problems and reacts like we do (although perhaps exaggeratedly). I'd love to see a Donald Duck feature over a Mickey one.

Still, I wonder what type of plot they could develop for Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. There are so many different styles and portrayals of the characters, and so many different settings they find themselves in (I think I have seen Mickey living in at least 20 different houses over the years in the shorts, and comics, etc.), that I just don't know how the animators could decide on one definitive style for the very first feature of the world's most iconic characters . . .

I hope that this project gets made, I hope it has a wonderful story, and, above all, I hope they keep it traditionally animated. If Disney makes a feature-length film in the style of Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse, I might just disown Disney as my favorite company.