viddy well.: Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize.

So I'm really excited to hear that Guillermo del Toro is going to be taking on the Haunted Mansion for the big screen. Now, I've only been on the ride once, when I was ten, in Orlando. To this day I can't believe I went on it since pretty much everything frightens me and I am still terrified of haunted houses. But I will say that I can't wait to ride it again, and I can't wait to see how this new project turns out. I never saw the 2003 version with Eddie Murphy, but I think watching the trailer was quite enough. This seems like the perfect project for del Torro, and it's nice to hear that he will be making the film scary, rather than going the comedic route.

From /Film, here's what del Toro had to say about the project at Comic Con:

Guillermo del Toro: I went to Disneyland the first time when I was three years old, and I was a lump of fat about this big. And I fortunately was there the year the mansion opened, and I’ve been there every year at least once for the rest of my life. It’s one of those places that I go to… Literally, that’s how freaky I am, unfortunately.

This is a place where I go to when I need to think, when I need to relax and unwind. When we were going through the worst process of Mimic in 1997, we were doing post in Los Angeles and I would go on the weekend and ride it over and over again.

And to me, my man cave, my little house that I have… I have my own Haunted Mansion room with the gargoyles, the wallpaper, original art by Marc Davis, and so on and so forth. And I always felt that the Haunted Mansion told such stories without having to be done solely as a horror film. I thought that the clash or the poignancy of Claude Coates, Rolly, and Marc Davis created a unique flavor for the Mansion.

I would love to say we are doing the movie, it’s live-action. It is going to be in 3D. And 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.

We are not returning Eddie Murphy’s calls.

[laughter]

And we are not making it a comedy. We are making it into an e-ticket ride. We are going to make it scary and fun at the same time. But the scary will be scary. And to me, the mansion has to become the haunted house movie that a generation remembers and loves after being created by us. We are doing this by reintroducing… the mythology in the mansion will be done, and this is really for the hardcore fans, it is going to be created around the character we are reintroducing into the tale. And it is my biggest hope that we can reintroduce it right. And that is the Hatbox Ghost.

I always loved his image. I think he is one of the scariest creations, but he is also incredibly whimsical. What I decided was, in the talks with Disney, that this would be the pivotal character to reintroduce the mythology. And I said, please, this is going to be scary. If you take the children, they will scream. But we hope that happens.

And it’s a litmus test of character. This, to me, is a dream come true, and I hope to steal as many props as possible.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize.

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