A grieving father has been denied permission to put a picture of Spider-Man on his little boy’s grave because Disney wants to preserve the ‘magic’ of its characters.
Marvel superfan Ollie Jones, four, died from a rare genetic disorder last year and was given a Spider-Man themed funeral, featuring a horse-drawn carriage decorated in red and blue balloons.
The little boy, of Maidenstone, Kent, had suffered from leukodystrophy for two years and his last holiday had been to Disneyland to meet his favourite superhero. His dad Lloyd Jones asked the council for permission to get an etching of Spider-Man on Ollie’s gravestone as he wanted the image to remind him of his son. Council officials told Lloyd to contact the Walt Disney Company, which owns the Marvel franchise.
But Disney refused to give the go-ahead because the company wanted to preserve the ‘innocence’ and ‘magic’ around its characters. The rejection email from the US-based giant instead offered the devastated family a personalised celluloid frame – effectively an action frame taken from a comic or film – showing a scene from Spider-Man, with a hand-written message to Ollie. Dad-of-six Lloyd said: ‘I really wasn’t expecting this – it’s another massive blow. ‘I felt sure they would allow it.’
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