Walt (TV movie pitch)

Walt was a planned TV movie for The Wonderful World of Disney. The film was planned to be the premiere opener for the revival of the anthology series and was co-written by Mike Bonifer and L.G. Weaver.

Plot
As described by Bonifer, the TV movie would have covered the life of Walt Disney. "The [film] consisted of four parts...1) Walt and Mickey, about Walt’s childhood through the birth and popularity of Mickey Mouse; 2) The Boy Who Would Be King, about the tumultuous great-and-awful events between Snow White and World War II; 3) A Castle at the End of Main Street, about the creation of Disneyland; and 4) Tomorrow, when Walt’s failing health and his utopian dream of EPCOT had him battling time on two fronts."

Development
Following the creation of Disney Family Album, Mike Bonifer conceived the idea of a television movie that covered the life of Walt Disney. He pitched it to Disney Channel CEO Jim Jimirro and head of development Peggy Christensen who agreed to fund the project. Bonifer teamed up with L.G. Weaver to write the script which took two years due to the two of them, and Disney Family Album co-creater Cardon Walker Jr., conducting interviews and research to get as much factual accuracy as possible. When Michael Eisner became the new CEO of Disney, Bonifer had artist Sam McKim create as series of storyboard pictures so that they can present it to Eisner. Eisner was impressed and insisted that the film be the opener for his planned revival of The Wonderful World of Disney.

After much approval from other executives, Card Walker Sr. told Cardon and Bonifer that they would need to get approval from the Disney family. Walt's grandson, Chris Miller, had seen the pitch and reportedly "cried like a baby" over it, but the biggest hurdle came from Diane Disney. She was mostly pleased with the pitch except for one major plot point. During the creation of Disneyland, the film called for there to be a rising conflict between Diane and her father that would have culminated in the two reconciling at the wedding anniversary between Walt and Lillian at the Golden Horseshoe Revue. Diane told Bonifer, "I’m not in favor of the studio doing this, but I can tell how passionate you are about it, so I’m not going to stand in your way."

Unfortunately for Bonifer, Eisner seemed to have lost interest in the project which Bonifer believed was due to some inert hidden jealousy he had for Walt. Eisner also added that Sharon Disney was against the idea. Roy E. Disney felt that the film should be called Walt and Roy or Roy and Walt and be just as much about Roy Oliver Disney as it did about Walt which Bonifer felt would be the equivalent of doing a piece on a "magician's assistant". Jimirro was replaced with an "Eisnerite", resulting in the project losing a studio. Bonifer was directed to a new executive to produce another television film who only seemed interested in the scandalous myths surrounding Walt. Soon everyone began to turn against the project and Bonifer had lost all the support he had garnered.

Since then, Bonifer had saved McKim's drawings and following the release of Saving Mr. Banks had finally posted them online.