Fan-Made Poster Imagines Ryan Gosling as ‘Walt’

Poster created by Pascal Witaszek
Poster created by Pascal Witaszek

First, the French won this year’s Oscars. Now they’re telling Americans what movies to make. Quel toupet!

Not that Paris-based graphic artist Pascal Witaszek hasn’t come up with a bonne idée, especially now that Hollywood is awash in nostalgia about its own past. The pitch: a biopic about Walt Disney. Over the weekend, the Parisian dreamer uploaded a what-if movie poster, featuring a mustachioed Ryan Gosling hunched over a notepad, perched on a pink velvet train seat while scenic grasslands and puffy clouds rush by. (And if you squint not that hard at the puffy clouds, you’ll spot a very famous mouse.)

The poster, which already comes with a tag line “Of a Mouse and a Man,” even recommends that Ron Howard direct this coming-of-Disney story. The dream cast also includes the likes of Michele Williams, Ewan McGregor, Marion Cotillard, and Matthew Fox. Disney hasn’t responded to our inquires about the poster.

[Photos: Ryan Gosling red carpet gallery]

This isn’t the first time that Witaszek, who describes himself as a “multi geek” with a “passione par l’entertainment” has made forays into fanboy cinematic territory: He cast French actor Vincent Cassel (who played the seductive ballet director in “Black Swan”) in “Eiffel” and Olivia Wilde as Elizabeth Taylor in “Liz” (co-starring Russell Crowe and Matthew McConaughey). And it’s hard to decide which is more inspired: Chloë Sevigny, Dominic Monaghan, Chris Pine, and Malin Akerman as ABBA in “Waterloo” (tag line: “in seventies, no one could have expected a Swedish band to conquer the world”), or just putting together Daniel Craig, Jason Statham, and Dwayne Johnson together (“False Step: Sometimes honesty is a mistake”). In an email to the Huffington Post, Witaszek, a former artistic director at Saatch & Saatchi, said the tribute was part his biopic series: “It seems that a lot of people share this funny association between two talented people.”

Outlets like E! Online point out that Gosling’s a good choice to play Disney, since he started off in The New Mickey Mouse Club and does his romancing in the Royaume Magique, like with his latest gal Eva Mendes. Then again, Gosling’s already 32, which makes him a decade older than when Disney was when the animator co-founded his famous studios. Plus, the actor’s career has been criminal lately, what with upcoming shoot-’em-up dramas like “Only God Forgives” and “Gangster Squad.”

[Related: In defense of Disney’s ‘John Carter’]

As for the fan reaction, searches on Yahoo! have started percolating for “ryan gosling as walt disney,” “ryan gosling as walt,” and “walt ryan gosling.” The director’s role though is already garnering controversy: Commenters at the Hollywood Reporter prefer Wes Anderson, while New York Magazine advocates Tim Burton. Let the fake bidding war begin.