Haunted Mansion Cast And Crew Reveal Easter Eggs In The Haunted House:
When he was helping “Haunted Mansion” director Justin Simien bring the popular Disney ride back to the big screen, “Haunted Mansion” production designer Darren Gilford had a pretty unique view.
Gilford had worked as an intern for Imagineering, so he knew how the ideas for the Disneyland attractions came about. Gilford started making the movie based on a Bible from Imagineering that was all about the ride. “I learned what Disney considered to be true,” he says.
Studio Tried To Make It As Much Like The Original Haunted Mansion Disneyland:
“We really tried to make it as much like the original Haunted Mansion from Disneyland as we could. It was anticipated to be based a lot on the ride’s symbols.”
In the movie, LaKeith Stanfield, Danny DeVito, Tiffany Hadish, Jamie Lee Curtis, Owen Wilson, as well as Rosario Dawson play the members of a group that tries to get rid of 999 ghosts from a grand old house in New Orleans. But the outside of Gracey Mansion was built in Atlanta on a backlot.
Haunted Mansion Made Only $24 Million At The Box Office Over The Weekend:
Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” only made approximately $24 million at the box office over the weekend, which is a poor showing for a film that cost a minimum of $200 million to produce and promote.
The scary-comedy movie didn’t get good reviews. It was also very hard to win. Within its second weekend, “Barbie” made a huge $93 million and easily took the top spot, while “Oppenheimer” made about $46.2 million.
Barbie Made More Than %750 Million At Box Office Worldwide:
Comscore, a company that tracks box office information, says that “Barbie” has now made more than $750 million worldwide. “Oppenheimer” has made about $400 million in ticket sales around the world.
But the Hollywood actors’ strike, which is currently in its third week, meant that “Haunted Mansion” was the first big-budget project that had to be put on hold.
No talks are planned till the strike is over. The artists’ union has told its members that they can’t promote movies or TV shows that have already come out.
Due To Protest Union Has Told Their Members That They Can Not Promote Movie Or TV Show:
No red carpet visits, social media posts, comments upon morning news shows, or involvement with newspaper or magazine stories.
Gilford spent hours exploring the ride at Disneyland because he wanted to show moviegoers what it was like to go on the ride “but on an entirely different scale.”
Gilford and his team made the front yard look like a swamp, and the big, looming house allowed Simien to play with the spooky shadows to make the house look haunting.
Gilford had to make all the famous parts of the ride, like the stretching room, the seance room, the big dining room, the grand hallway, as well as the library, all over again for the interiors.
He asked graphic artist Ellen Lampl to make the wallpaper for the house from scratch. The wallpaper changes color throughout the scenes in the ghost realm.
Gilford Put A Lot Of Easter Eggs Within And His Favorite Is Travis’s Bed:
Gilford put in a lot of Easter eggs, but his favorite is Travis’s bed, which looks like a pair of jaws and has “torn fabric” that is supposed to look like teeth. Another favorite is the organ within the dining room, which looks like the part of the ride where ghosts fly out of the instrument.
Gilford had the idea to use the Medusa head from the ride’s background during reshoots. He tells people with good eyes to look for it: “There’s a pumpkin with the standard Medusa head cut on it. I decided to do it at the last minute, and this amazing artist in Atlanta made it for me overnight.”
Gilford, Simien, and the rest of the crew also added the doom buggy, the “Grim Grinning Ghosts” song, the grandfather clock that says 13 o’clock, and Leto’s hatbox ghost, a fan favorite that was put back into the ride in 2015 after being taken out because of a technology problem.
Edwin Rivera, who was in charge of production VFX, was just as important to capture the ride’s spirit. Rivera, who is employed by DNEG, and Industrial Light & Magic worked together to give the movie more than 1,700 shots. Together, they added to sets like the halls and the world outside the house. They also made the scary ghost realm even scarier.
In the movie, the “candlelit, hazy exaggeration of horror” of the ride was tried to be shown by cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron. He says that working with candelabras and starry sets is “a cinematographer’s playground. We wanted to ensure it was always scary and had enough depth to back up the funny parts.”
Simien wished to use actors to bring the 999 ghosts of the evil house to life instead of making the whole movie full of ghosts made by a computer. Rivera says, “He wants things to feel real, so he made the players wear makeup. But then the question was, “How can we make that sound more ethereal?”
Actors who played ghosts hung from ropes as well as were later digitally improved, which helped the acts of the main group.
“There are parts of ‘The Shining’ and ‘The Ring’ where someone is actually within the room, and it’s very scary. It makes you desire to get out of the room and reminds you of a scary movie from the 1980s.
Disney’s Haunted Mansion just came out, and critics and fans alike are having a lot to say about it. When the review ban was broken, the Rotten Tomatoes score came out, which disappointed many people.
Reviewers Provided Rotten Rating And Only 42% People Gave It Good Rating:
Even though the movie was directed by Justin Simien and had a great cast and a story based on a well-known theme park ride, reviewers gave it a Rotten rating, with only 42% of them giving it a good review.
Haunted Mansion didn’t get the “Fresh” badge because it didn’t get at least 60%. The response to this live-action remake is just one part of Disney’s big plan for more live-action remakes.
In the last ten years, House of Mouse has been upon a remake binge, making live-action versions of several popular cartoon movies.
Several of these remakes have gone over well with critics and audiences, but others have not. This puts Disney in a tough spot when it comes to redoing beloved favorites.
Cast members from “Haunted Mansion” couldn’t go on TV shows such as “Good Morning America” where they were scheduled to appear 12 times.
Appointments to promote the movie within London, Toronto, Atlanta, Miami, as well as San Diego were also canceled, leaving the director, Justin Simien, to spread the word on his own. But a lot of the news stories that came out of it were about the strike, not the movie.
According To Rotten Tomatoes 85% People Who Watched The Movie They Liked It:
Mr. Chambers said that, according to Rotten Tomatoes, 85 percent of people who saw the movie liked it. He also said that “Haunted Mansion” continued to find its feet.
During the rest of the summer school break, there won’t be many family movies coming out. “The runway should be pretty clear for the following four weeks,” he said.
Disney is the most important movie company in Hollywood. It owns Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Walt Disney Animation, Searchlight, 20th Century Pictures, as well as a company that brings standard Disney “intellectual property” to big screens in new ways.
This is where “Haunted Mansion” was made. The movie is centered on a Disney ride that has been around for 54 years.
Disney Remakes That Did Well:
Some of the most popular Disney remakes have shown that this method can really win over both crowds and critics. Films like Maleficent as well as Cinderella were able to find a balance between staying true to the original story and adding something new.
Jon Favreau’s 2019 live-action version of The Lion King used cutting-edge CGI and a character cast with stars like Donald Glover, Beyoncé, as well as James Earl Jones.
Critics liked how it looked, how it used technology in new ways, and how beautiful the pictures were. All of these things helped it make more than $1.6 billion at the global box office, making it a very effective remake for Disney, even though the story and direction were criticized for not having any real emotions or character development.
