evidence: Did Disney buy the rights to the Bible? Debunking the bizarre social media rumour [...] While the rumour of Disney buying the Bible has been around for years, its modern iteration seems to be inspired by an article on parody website Babylon Bee from 2018 that claimed Disney had bought the rights to the "Bible from its Author" for $7.02 billion. The article claims: "Disney is buying the intellectual property rights to the Bible for $7.02 billion from its Author. In a statement announcing the purchase, Disney said it planned to release a major Bible sequel in 2020 The Christ Awakens, kicking off a big-budget trilogy." [...] Even Disney, with all its monies, can’t really buy the Bible because there’s no one version. For starters, the commercial rights of various versions belong to different owners. Zondervan, a Christian publishing company holds the commercial rights for the New International Version (NIV) Bible in North America. Zondervan is part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing Inc. The King James Version is owned by The Crown which is part of the Firm’s collection which is protected under Royal Charter and only the Cambridge University Press is allowed to publish it.