Ready to feel old? Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, starring Eddie Murphy, Terrence Stamp and Jennifer Tilly, is 20 years old. How did that happen? And you’re welcome.
At the time, the film was considered a box office and critical flop, grossing $24,278,410 on its opening weekend with an average of $7,776 per theatre in the United States. The film ended with a domestic gross at $75,847,266. Pretty lifeless for a highly anticipated film.
So, Disney has decided to dig up the dead again and has released the trailer for the rebooted Haunted Mansion.
Actually, this reboot has been in the works since July 2010. Disney announced that a reboot adaptation based on The Haunted Mansion was in development with Guillermo del Toro as writer and producer. Del Toro stated the project would not take place in a real-world setting but in a heightened reality. He revealed that the Hatbox Ghost would be one of the main characters and said the film would be “scary and fun at the same time, but the scary will be scary.”
In August 2012, del Toro submitted the final draft of his script to Walt Disney Studios, intended for a PG-13 rating. By July 2013, del Toro announced he was no longer the project’s director, but remained as co-writer and executive producer. In April 2015, Ryan Gosling was in early negotiations to star, while D.V. DeVincentis was hired to rewrite the script. In September 2016, Brigham Taylor was hired as producer.
Now directed by Justin Simien, the film features an all-star cast ensemble cast that includes LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Chase W. Dillon, and Dan Levy, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Jared Leto as The Hatbox Ghost.
The new plot, inspired by the classic theme park attraction, Haunted Mansion is about a woman and her son who enlist a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters. Watch the trailer below:
REELated:
Haunted Mansion is produced by Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich, with Nick Reynolds and Tom Peitzman serving as executive producers.
The film spooks us in theaters on Friday, July 28.
