'Haunted Mansion' director wanted to make new Disney reboot 'as Black' as possible

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It’s a familiar route for filmmakers in today’s Hollywood: Make an acclaimed indie then get sucked into the studio system for a $100 million blockbuster. Disney has mastered the art, with Moonlight director Barry Jenkins now making a Lion King sequel) and the Mouse’s in-house Marvel Studios tapping Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) for Captain Marvel, Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) for Shang-Chi and Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) to Eternals).

Justin Simien had his own art-house breakout, too, writing and directing the 2014 Sundance winner Dear White People, which led to a Netflix series that ran from 2017 to 2021. And he was initially attached to a Lando Calrissian spinoff starring Donald Glover for Disney’s Lucasfilm, he just completed another massive project for the studio — this week’s theme park-based reboot Haunted Mansion.

Yet as familiar as the indie-to-tentpole path is these days, Haunted Mansion has been a deeply personal ride for the 40-year-old Houston native.

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Simien wanted to improve on the critically lambasted 2003 version starring Eddie Murphy, which he openly disparaged. “It was a kids movie that came out at a time when I was not a kid. It didn’t necessarily speak to me,” he tells us.

But there were other significant, more specific goals.

“As a filmmaker, I have an incredible desire to bring the history of New Orleans and specifically Black culture [to the movie],” he says. “This is the birthplace of jazz and the best food in the country. And all of our popular cultures come out of this time in New Orleans where Black people and white people and indigenous people and the Spanish and all these people were free. And it was short-lived, but it was long enough to produce this amazing, unique culture. And that was literally [number one] on my bucket list of things to bring to life and film. And then at the end of the day, Katie Dippold wrote this amazing ensemble comedy.”

Whereas Murphy and the actors who played his family were surrounded by mostly white actors in the 2003 version, Simien sought to course-correct with a more diverse cast.

“I felt it was really important for the lead to be Black, because this is set in New Orleans and it’s an 85% Black town,” he says.

“I wanted to make [the movie] as Black as I can because that’s New Orleans,” he says. “And tell this ensemble story that I feel like I know how to do. And luckily, Disney agreed. That’s why it’s here. That’s why I’m here.”

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