Guillermo Del Toro Talks More about THE HAUNTED MANSION

At Comic-Con last week director Guillermo Del Toro announced that he would be producing a new film version of The Haunted Mansion for Disney. A lot of people seemed to roll their eyes at this because the first Haunted Mansion film left a bad taste in a lot of people mouths. But Del Toro was extremely excited about the project! He said that the movie would actually be a really scary live-action 3D horror film, not a comedy like the first film. Guillermo said,

We’re making the Haunted Mansion the most haunted place on Earth, and we are doing it by being true to the spirit and the art and the aesthetic of the original Imagineers that created the mansion.

He revealed at the time that the movie would revolve around the famous Hatbox Ghost, who del Toro says is one of the scariest images created for the ride, and I'd have to agree, that ghost scared the hell out of me as a kid.

He recently spoke with MTV and reveled a few additional plot details for the film which he is currently writing with Matthew Robbins, who worked with Del Toro on Mimic and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

The movie I see in my head of ‘Haunted Mansion’ is not what I believe anyone is imagining it would be. It’s not just a regular world with a haunted mansion plopped in the middle. I’m really thinking of a movie with a heightened reality, which is super designed, incredibly innovative, narratively and visually. When people think of ‘The Haunted Mansion,’ they think they know [what it's about]. But I really want to push a lot of stuff that they have not seen ever.” … “We are taking sort of the core mythology [of the ride] that you can tap into and saying that there are many mansions around the world and they’re all part of a sort of web. The spider sitting at the center of the web is what the fans of ‘The Haunted Mansion’ would know by the nickname the Hatbox Ghost, which is a beautiful creature that was created but there’s a legend that it was discarded on the first day of the ride’s operation because it was too scary. I like that legend, but the reality is that the imagineers could not make the illusion work, so they took it out.

I love The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, and any fan of the ride should be excited that Del Toro is going to bring it to life on the big screen. The guy is going to do some pretty incredible things with it, and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us!

What do you think about Del Toro's plans for The Haunted Mansion?

From the Press Release:

Since August 1969, foolish mortals have dared to trespass on the macabre grounds of Disney’s Haunted Mansion. A hallowed landmark in Disneyland’s New Orleans square, it’s the dwelling place of 999 happy haunts dying to meet new visitors each day. The plantation-style of the mansion’s facade is a sweet deception for visitors. Inside, ghostly doom buggies line the hallways. Since its construction, the mysteries of the mansion have transcended the attraction with stories surfacing about horrifying encounters with the supernatural. Versions of the daunting edifice have been built at other Disney theme parks in Orlando, Tokyo and Paris.