Despite already dealing with multiple spirits in one place, Justin Simien teases the Haunted Mansion reboot could feature multiple ghost-filled locations. Rosario Dawson and Owen Wilson are leading the ensemble cast of the upcoming Disneyland ride adaptation alongside Lakeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Chase W. Dillon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, Hasan Minhaj, Dan Levy and Winona Ryder. Haunted Mansion will see a single mother and her son trying to move into the eponymous manor, only to find it home to a number of ghosts.
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly for their Summer Movie Preview, Justin Simien offered some new details for the upcoming Haunted Mansion reboot movie. In explaining the creation of the titular house, the director teased that the film may actually feature multiple ghost-filled locations, even if the story is "firmly planted" in the New Orleans setting. See what Simien shared below:
You really do meet the mansion the way you would as a guest at the park: through the eyes of a new cast exploring the lore along with you. The script firmly plants it in the New Orleans mansion. That's not to say there are not other mansions in the movie. [We looked at Eddie Murphy’s Haunted Mansion for how we could] go awry. We got down to the point where we were obsessing over the angle you first see the mansion when you walk onto the ride in Disneyland, when we see it through the gates and we see the pillars. That angle has to hit. That's how specific we were. When you first glide through the dining hall and you see the waltzing dancers, that angle had to be right, because that's the one where you gasp on the ride.
Will Haunted Mansion Become The Next Pirates of the Caribbean?
Given the film is said to follow a team of paranormal experts being recruited to exorcise the ghosts inhabiting the location, it seems likely Simien's tease of multiple ghost-filled locations for Haunted Mansion could come from establishing the ensemble group of characters. The film's trailer only showed how Wilson's unnamed priest recruits Stanfield's unnamed paranormal tour guide with the promise of money, making it possible the rest can be seen getting hired while investigating other haunted settings.
The other possibility for Simien's tease could be the Haunted Mansion reboot setting up future sequels with the central team going on to continue working together to clear out other ghost-filled locations. Disney previously found success expanding a theme park ride into a full movie franchise with the Johnny Depp-led Pirates of the Caribbean, which has both a sixth movie and a Margot Robbie-led spinoff languishing in development hell. Additionally, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are expected to return for a Jungle Cruise sequel.
With the bar already set low for the Haunted Mansion reboot movie following the poor initial response to the Eddie Murphy-led film, a positive early reception could help it become a sleeper hit at the box office and establish future prospects for the property. That being said, the film does have some heated competition with Barbie, Oppenheimer and Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One hitting theaters the two weeks prior and both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Meg 2: The Trench the week after.
Source: EW
