Ever since Eddie Murphy, in the middle of his “easy payday” period of the mid-2000s, kneecapped Disney’s original attempt to bring the Haunted Mansion ride to the screen as a feature-length horror comedy, the House of Mouse has been busy working behind the scenes to do-it-over. Guillermo Del Toro was once attached to direct (back before he parlayed all that Shape of Water glory into Nightmare Alley infamy and Pinocchio success), and he’s still got a writing credit on this new, semi-period adaptation, which is directed by Dear White People‘s Justin Simien. It’s certainly got a hell of a cast, with the likes of Lakeith Stanfield, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, and Danny DeVito in the ensemble, and the teaser trailer that Disney dropped on Tuesday doesn’t look too bad. We’re still kind of bearish on amusement-park ride movies (they’ve been trying so hard to recapture that Pirates glory with diminishing returns), but, hey, it seems fun enough.
Peep it:
Here’s the most watery-thin synopsis that Disney could have possibly generated. Were they trying to make it tweet-length for a reason? It’s not really like you can sell a Haunted Mansion movie on, say, familiar characters or iconography, but whatever:
“A single mom named Gabbie hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest, and a historian to help exorcise their newly bought mansion; after discovering it is inhabited by ghosts.”
You won’t have to wait until Halloween to check out Haunted Mansion — hell, you won’t even have to wait until the film’s original release date, which was August 11 — because it’ll creep its way into theaters on July 28. All we need now is a Tower of Terror movie. Or it even could be a short film. Just drop us a full thirty stories and give everybody in the audience vertigo. That’d be an experience and a half, especially in IMAX.