Guillermo del Toro Gives Details On His Haunted Mansion Vision
Guillermo del Toro may have already selected his next directorial project, but that doesn’t mean his passion for THE HAUNTED MANSION, a reboot he’ll be writing and producing for Disney will be anywhere near diminished. del Toro recently sat down with MTV News to elaborate on how near and dear to his heart The Haunted Mansion as a Disney attraction is to him, and, as a result, the careful detail to which he is approaching the new film with regards to the long mythology of the ride and his own ideas for helping people forget the Eddie Murphy version.
“For some people, it’s just a ride. For others like me, it’s a way of life. We’re really serious fanatics. I’m a big, big collector of it. I’ve been collecting not only memorabilia, but also original artifacts from the mansion for the last ten years.”
“The storyline for ‘The Haunted Mansion’ and the ride is quite open. We are taking sort of the core mythology 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. It’s more or less where the bride is in the attic on the way out of the mansion, but it’s such a great character that there is literally a cult for the Hatbox Ghost amongst hardcore ‘Haunted Mansion’ fanatics, and I’m one of them.”
“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.”
There is no doubt in The Kidd’s mind that del Toro absolutely loves The Haunted Mansion, and, as a result, this makes him the right guy for the job. This is wholly a passion project for him, and, because of his love for the original material, you’ve got to believe he’ll be pounding away at this script until he feels he gets it completely right. I truly wish del Toro would have taken the job to also direct THE HAUNTED MANSION reboot, because I think his visual style could have gone a long way towards creating the type of “scary” the film may need… but, as I’ve said before, some del Toro is better than no del Toro, and for this film in particular, I’ll take what I can get.
To bring yourself up to speed on the center of del Toro’s vision, you can read up on the legend of the Hatbox Ghost HERE.
As a side note, the first time The Kidd ever rode The Haunted Mansion at Disney World, the only part of the ride I saw was the end where the ghosts follow you home. Up until that point I was too scared to open my eyes, and missed everything. Needless to say, the next year, I psyched myself up and made it through, registering The Haunted Mansion as one of my all-time favorites… but I figured some of you might get a kick out of my fear the 1st time around. You sick bastards.
I love this ride so much! I’m so excited for this movie!