The film was theatrically released in the United States on November 26, 2003, by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. The film received negative reviews from critics but performed well at the box office, grossing $182.3 million worldwide against a $90 million budget.[4] Despite its initial reviews, the film has developed a cult following over the years. A reboot directed by Justin Simien was later released in 2023, twenty years after the film's release.
Plot
In Louisiana, Jim and Sara Evers are successful realtors with a pair of children, Michael and Megan. However, Jim's workaholic lifestyle causes him to miss their wedding anniversary. When he tries to make amends by suggesting a vacation to the nearby lake, Sara is suddenly contacted by the residents of Gracey Manor, located in the nearby bayou; Jim, eager to make a deal upon learning the mansion's address, takes his family there and meet its owner, Edward Gracey, his butler Ramsley and his other servants – maid Emma and footman Ezra.
When a thunderstorm floods the nearby river, Gracey lets the family stay at the mansion for the night. Ramsley takes Jim to its library to discuss the deal with Gracey, but he becomes trapped in a secret passage. Gracey gives Sara a tour of the mansion, discussing his past and the death of his "grandfather" after the supposed suicide of his lover, Elizabeth Henshaw. The Evers children follow a spectral orb to the mansion's attic and find a painting of a woman resembling Sara. Emma and Ezra soon appear and identify the woman as the late Elizabeth.
Meanwhile, Jim meets Madame Leota, the ghost of a gypsy whose head is encased in her crystal ball. He runs into Emma, Ezra and his children and returns to Leota for answers about Elizabeth's likeness to Sara. It is revealed that the mansion's inhabitants are ghosts, cursed a century ago by Elizabeth and Gracey's untimely deaths, that can only enter the afterlife when the couple is reunited; Sara is believed to be Elizabeth's reincarnation, though Leota cautions that things are not as they seem. She sends the Evers to the mansion's cemetery to find a key that will reveal the truth about Elizabeth's death. In a crypt beneath a mausoleum, Jim and Megan find the key, but inadvertently disturb its undead occupants. The duo narrowly escape with help from Michael, who overcomes his arachnophobia when they are locked in.
Leota then leads them to a locked trunk in the attic, in which Jim finds a letter that Elizabeth wrote to Gracey, revealing her intent to marry him and indicating that she was murdered. Ramsley then appears and it is revealed that he murdered Elizabeth to prevent his master from abandoning his heritage, as he believed their relationship was unacceptable. To hide the truth, Ramsley detains the children in another trunk and literally throws Jim out of the mansion, subsequently enchanting it to keep him at bay. As Gracey and Sara rendezvous in the ballroom, she is confused when he asks if she recognizes him and insists she is Elizabeth. The room then fills with dancing ghosts as Gracey reveals his true colors, but Sara denies being Elizabeth and flees to her room. Gracey starts to have doubts, but Ramsley insists that Sara is Elizabeth and will eventually remember as he then blackmails her into marrying Gracey in exchange for her children's safety.
Encouraged by Leota, Jim manages to re-enter the mansion, rescue his children and stop the wedding. He then gives Gracey Elizabeth's letter and Ramsley's crimes are exposed. Furious, Gracey confronts Ramsley, who rages at his master's apparent selfishness for loving Elizabeth as he summons wraiths to attack the group. However, with the truth revealed, a demon emerges from the ballroom's fireplace and drags Ramsley down to Hell to face eternal punishment for his sins. Ramsley attempts to take Jim with him, but he is saved by Gracey. Sara suddenly collapses, having been poisoned by Ramsley during the wedding ceremony, but the spectral orb appears and, possessing Sara, is revealed to be Elizabeth, who could only be freed from her current form once the truth was revealed. She and Gracey then reunite as Sara is subsequently revived.
With the curse lifted, Gracey gives the Evers the deed to the mansion and departs to Heaven with Elizabeth and the mansion's inhabitants. Afterwards, the Evers set off for their intended vacation, accompanied by Leota and a quartet of singing busts that Jim and the children encountered while searching for the mausoleum strapped to their car's roof.
In a post-credits scene, Leota encourages the audience to return using the same lines from the finale of the film's source material.
Cast
Eddie Murphy as Jim Evers, a successful yet workaholic real estate agent who is often late for family gatherings, but tries his best to make up for it.
Terence Stamp as Ramsley, the ghost of Gracey Manor's butler who serves as a father figure to Master Gracey. He is later revealed to be responsible for Elizabeth's death.
Nathaniel Parker as Master Edward Gracey, the ghost of Gracey Manor's owner who longs for his lost love, Elizabeth Henshaw, to return to him after her apparent suicide. The character is a three-way combination of the Ghost Host, the Aging Man portrait and the eponymous character from the source material.
Sara Evers, Jim's disapproving wife and business partner.
Elizabeth Henshaw, the ghost of Master Gracey's long lost lover who bears a striking resemblance to Sara. She is loosely based on the source material's bride characters.
Jennifer Tilly as Madame Leota, the ghost of a Romani woman whose head is encased in her crystal ball.
Wallace Shawn as Ezra, the ghost of a bumbling footman who worries about getting into trouble.
Dina Spybey as Emma, the ghost of a nervous but helpful maid who seems terrified of Ramsley.
The film's chief makeup artist Rick Baker appears in the graveyard scene as a ghost behind a tombstone, using an appearance based on a portrait of the Ghost Host seen in the attraction. The cast also includes an uncredited Martin Klebba as Pickwick, one of the ghosts in the graveyard, albeit unnamed and only credited as "Happy Ghost" and director Rob Minkoff's nephew, who appears as the paperboy in the opening scene.
In January 2002, it was announced Disney had formally greenlit The Haunted Mansion with the script written by David Berenbaum.[5]
The original concept for the film's setting was Upstate New York, with the mansion's exterior modeled after the Walt Disney World version. However, to keep the faithfulness of the original attraction's location in the New Orleans Square section of Disneyland, the producers changed the setting to New Orleans, Louisiana. To allude to the two versions of the attraction and create a more foreboding atmosphere, the production enlarged the film mansion, basing its designs on the original attraction while adding the iron and glass conservatory on its side from the Florida version of the ride. Director Rob Minkoff described the film's mansion's architecture as Renaissance-influenced with a mix of antebellum and Dutch-colonial revival style.[citation needed]
The mansion scenes were filmed at Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita, California. The main building was constructed over a period of weeks while the cupola and chimneys on the top of the mansion were computer-generated. The rest of film was shot in New Orleans and surrounding areas.
A quintet of Hidden Mickeys are seen throughout the film similar to the ride; the most notable ones being the padlock at the mansion's gates, the second when an axe wielded by a possessed suit of armor nearly hits Jim and a third which is briefly seen when Ramsley poisons a goblet of wine during the wedding ceremony. The other two are the couch in the library and the windows on the doors Jim passes when he is chased by musical instruments summoned by Madame Leota. Before leaving the mansion via a hearse to find the mausoleum, Ezra exclaims "there's always my way", a pivotal line of dialogue from the attraction.
The costume and special effects designers wanted the ghost characters to become "more dead" the farther they were from the mansion. While Ezra and Emma look human in the house, their leaving it causes them to become blue and transparent to show they are ghosts. The zombies in the mausoleum were described as the "deadest as they are farthest away". Rick Baker, the chief costume designer, did the prosthetic makeup for the zombies in the mausoleum, using skull-based heads for their designs. He also designed one of the zombies as an elderly man holding a cane in order to make the scene less frightening for viewers.
Music
The music for The Haunted Mansion was composed by Mark Mancina who had previously worked on music for Disney animated films such as The Lion King and Tarzan. Mark used an original score for the film, but also briefly used the original attraction's song "Grim Grinning Ghosts" in the scene when Jim and his children came across the Singing Busts in the cemetery while looking for the mausoleum.
Reception
Box office
The Haunted Mansion grossed $24.3 million on its opening weekend with an average of $7,776 per theatre in the United States. With a final domestic gross at $75.8 million, the film made just more than a quarter of the earnings of its theme-ride predecessor Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The film achieved better in other markets, with an international total of $106.4 million.[3]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval percentage of 14% based on 140 reviews and a rating of 4.30/10. The critics consensus reads: "Neither scary nor funny, The Haunted Mansion is as lifeless as the ghosts in the movie."[6] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 34 out of 100 based on 34 critic reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[7] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[8]
David Sterritt of Christian Science Monitor wrote "While it may supply giggles and shivers to preteens, grownups should think twice before entering this all-too-haunted house." Roger Ebert in The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half stars out of a possible four, writing "The surprising thing about "The Haunted Mansion" isn't that it's based on a Disney theme park ride, but that it has ambition. It wants to be more than a movie version of the ride. I expected an inane series of nonstop action sequences, but what I got was a fairly intriguing story and an actual plot that is actually resolved. That doesn't make the movie good enough to recommend, but it makes it better than the ads suggest."[9] In one of the film's positive reviews, Sheri Linden of Hollywood Reporter called the film "A pleasant and atmospheric family romp, offering enough mildly chilling thrills to keep everyone entertained during its brief running time."
Legacy
Although considered a critical failure and a decent box office success upon its release, The Haunted Mansion has undergone a reassessment over the past several years. Like Clue (1985), The Monster Squad (1987), and Hocus Pocus (1993), all similar dark-yet-broadly-comical films that initially opened to poor reviews and disappointing box office results before growing an appreciative audience over time, The Haunted Mansion has grown in popularity since its original theatrical run and has achieved cult status, as noted by media outlets such as Insider.[10] and Full Circle Cinema.[11]
In January 2023, Eddie Murphy was critical about the film, stating "It wasn't very good".[20]
In October 2023 to celebrate the film's 20th anniversary, many crew members who worked on the film including director Rob Minkoff, screenwriter David Berenbaum, costume designer Mona May, composer Mark Mancina and cast member Nathaniel Parker reunited by participating in a livestream on YouTube on The Tammy Tuckey Show. The event had been organized ahead of time.[21]
Home media
The film was released on VHS and DVD on April 20, 2004.[22] The film was released on Blu-Ray on October 17, 2006.[citation needed]
In July 2010, it was announced that a reboot adaptation based on Disney's The Haunted Mansion was in development for Walt Disney Pictures, with Guillermo del Toro as writer and producer.[23] The film remained in development until Ryan Gosling entered early negotiations to star in April 2015, while D.V. DeVincentis was hired to rewrite the script.[24] In September 2016, Brigham Taylor was hired as an additional producer.[25]
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