There is no other way. MI is too close to the Pirates of the Caribbeans franchise to let anyone run wild with it. Disney will keep it as buried as possible, and strictly under control.
Ron is publicly begging for it (and not even for the first time) because all other avenues have failed. It's easy to predict nothing will change as long as Johnny Depp is alive and working.
>> I wonder if anyone high up in Disney could be persuaded to give Ron Gilbert enough control to make MI3a.
> It's easy to predict nothing will change as long as Johnny Depp is alive and working.
Clearly, Ron Gilbert should try contacting Johnny Depp to get the rights from Disney ;)
Depp seems to be the kind of guy to appreciate the creativity in Monkey Island, and Disney would actually respond to him.
Hell, Johnny Depp might even be interested in doing some Guybrush voice acting for the game.
Even if he couldn't get full rights, Disney would be much more likely to acquiesce to the notion of another Monkey Island without a complete stranglehold on creativity.
Related bit of trivia: MI was heavily inspired by Tim Powers' novel "On Stranger Tides" (which is a classic piece of secret history, involving Blackbeard, the Fountain of Youth, and of course zombie pirates). For the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, they bought the rights to the novel -- but pretty much the only thing they kept from the book was the title and the Blackbeard character. Everything else has been changed, for the worse. (So much worse.) So Disney's two pirate franchises are related, in a weird way.
Pirates of the Caribbean movies heavily borrowed from "On Stranger Tides" from the very first movie, so it was only fair that they eventually actually licensed the book, even if only to mostly just use the (fantastic) title, because they'd already picked so much of the book apart.
Also, further mutual inspiration trivia between the two franchises: Ron's never made it a secret that Monkey Island was also directly inspired by the original Disney Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. (The influence of which can be felt strongly throughout, but which most directly manifests itself in the complicated and controversial MI2 ending.)
Yet I am still asking if there is another way, because in my experience, it's so easy to slap 'impossible' on something. Fell into this trap myself.
HN isn't exactly a community of people who accept conventional wisdom. Wouldn't it be nice if, say, we figured out some way to attack this, connected with the right person to handle it, and take the idea somewhere?
If not for Monkey Island, consider it an exercise in hacking supposed impossibilities.
Anyone got something? What kind of conditions would compel Disney to un-bury the IP and listen to suggestions?
Ron is publicly begging for it (and not even for the first time) because all other avenues have failed. It's easy to predict nothing will change as long as Johnny Depp is alive and working.