This year’s Haunted Mansion movie was Disney’s second attempt to turn one of its most popular theme park attractions into a hit movie. Unfortunately, the movie was not a success in that regard. It struggled both at the box office and among critics, but director Justin Simien is taking it all in stride. While he’s certainly not happy with the critical response, he’s happy that the audience that did find the movie appears to have enjoyed it.
The Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy was a commercial and critical flop, so it seemed like there was nowhere to go but up. And to be fair, critics collectively do appear to have liked the new Haunted Mansion better than the old Haunted Mansion, but that’s not the same as saying they liked it overall. Speaking with ScreenRant, Simien admitted that it’s strange to be on this side of the response, as usually critics like his work more than audiences. He said…
The one place where Haunted Mansion did succeed compared to its predecessor seems to be in the audience response. While the movie was not a box office hit, those who did see Haunted Mansion seemed to like it overall. Now that Haunted Mansion is on Disney+, there are a lot more people who can give it a chance and see what they missed, because Haunted Mansion actually is a pretty good movie.
As far as the movie itself goes, Justin Simien does seem to be very happy with the movie he made, even if not everybody is. The director says that he did read some of the reviews, something he rarely does, and he doesn’t necessarily agree with some of the critiques. He continued…
Some movies get a harsh response from critics early on, only for the general consensus to change over time. We’ll have to see if that happens with Haunted Mansion, which I, for one, thought was a pretty good movie. The film had plenty of references to the ride for fans, but had a solid story and characters that could appeal to most audiences.