Overview
- Stolen Kingdom began a national roadshow with theatrical openings that started May 21 and is available for rental on Letterboxd’s Video Store, with some outlets noting a wider digital window around June 16.
- The documentary centers on the 2018 disappearance of the 300-pound animatronic “Buzzy,” whose hat, jacket and headphones were recovered but whose body remains missing and is believed by participants to be in private hands.
- Former Walt Disney World employee Patrick Spikes, who ran BackDoorDisney, was arrested in 2019 and pleaded to burglary and grand-theft charges; the film pairs his interviews with police interrogation footage to contrast his accounts with official records.
- Director Joshua Bailey, who spent years building access to Disney-collector and urban-explorer communities, frames the story through subjects who illegally enter backstage and abandoned park areas to document, preserve, or sell ephemera.
- The film highlights a wider tension between fans who see old attractions as cultural artifacts and a corporate system that controls them, raising questions about legal accountability when stolen items enter private collections and online markets.