8 Fictional Movie Villains Inspired By Real People

8. Charles Muntz (Up) - Charles Mintz

A renowned explorer who travels the world in his zeppelin, the villainous side of Muntz is introduced midway through Pixar's Up, where he wrongly believes that Carl and Russell are out to take the credit for discovering Kevin - the bird creature Muntz has been hunting for decades.

It's widely believed that Muntz is based on Charles Mintz, famed American film producer. In 1928, Mintz snatched the rights to Oswald The Lucky Rabbit - a cartoon character co-created by Walt Disney - and turned him into a Universal Pictures mascot.

Besides the obviously similar name, there's definitely a connection between the two. In the movie, Carl is the one who technically discovers the bird (he's the first person to find one alive), making Muntz the one who is out to steal what's not rightfully his - like how Mintz stole the rights to Oswald.

And while Mintz was successful in real life, Muntz, in the film, was not - so perhaps the character's arc is Pixar's expression of the fair version of the Oswald story.