I want to begin with this that I think this attempt will be inflated and just as much of a blah as the first attempt.
To continue though:
Haunted Mansion's failure was not that heavily on Eddie Murphy. It was how he was written and directed as well as the other odd choices of the movie.
Eddie Murphy has more hits than flops.
Don't forget it was released right between Shrek and Shrek 2's years of 2001 and 2004. Dr. Dolittle came just five years prior as well as his hit with Disney Mulan pre his voice work on Shrek's media.
I think your thinking more of Norbit and Meet Dave films, which were flops and came years after Haunted Mansion.
I also want to take this time that there are some genuinely good parts of Meet Dave. That movie deserves a watch from a lot more people and had some of the creative minds behind Mystery Science Theater 3000 involved.
I think the issue is that the character of Jim Evers was both pretty unappealing and a bad tonal fit for the subject matter. The Haunted Mansion is a far more interesting subject for a movie than a workaholic dad. It felt like two very different movies were jammed together, giving neither a real shot at being successful.
I worry that the new movie is headed down a similar path. All this business about a single mom buying the Mansion and hiring a tour guide, a psychic, a priest, and a historian to help exorcise the place . . . how many not-dead people do we need in this house? Who goes to a Haunted Mansion movie for the LIVING characters??
I'm sure there will be plenty of ghosts, but with so many name actors playing non-ghost characters I worry their focus is once again in the wrong place. Any haunted house movie worth its salt knows the
real main character is the house itself. And in the case of The Haunted Mansion, they had 999 characters to choose from to focus on in it, and
again made it about the only people who
aren't haunting the house. Seems like history repeating itself. But I certainly hope I'm wrong.
Thank goodness for Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota, though. That seems like it could be a bright spot.
You'd think a dark, quasi-comedic period thriller in the vein of the first Pirates movie was just
begging to be made. Disney seems to afraid to take a risk on this property, despite the IP having some of the riskiest material in their canon and despite that clearly being a big part of its popularity. The ride only lightens up
after they've sufficiently tricked you into thinking you're gonna get scared out of your wits. It's the dark heart of The Magic Kingdom and the movie should reflect that.
