Guests can find this spooky photo-op at the Disney PhotoPass Studio in Marketplace at Disney Springs.
This portrait studio allows guests to join some of the Mansion’s happy haunts, the Hitchhiking Ghosts.
Part of the Mansion’s brick fence post with the iconic attraction sign is also part of the set. Guests can also channel their inner groundskeeper and hold a lantern for a photo, as well.
All photos taken at this special portrait studio are included with the purchase of a Memory maker. Currently, a Memory Maker purchased in advance is priced at $169, and $199 during and post-vacation. A one-day Memory Maker is $69.
He’s on his way! Hatbox Ghost will be making his way to Walt Disney World this November, and we couldn’t be any more excited than we are right now. Guests to Walt Disney World have waited eagerly for the 1000th happy haunt to make their way to Walt Disney World, and after a year of anticipation and rumors, we finally know that the newest fashion resident will find his way to Disney World in November of this year.
He’s on his way! Hatbox Ghost will be making his way to Walt Disney World this November, and we couldn’t be any more excited than we are right now. Guests to Walt Disney World have waited eagerly for the 1000th happy haunt to make their way to Walt Disney World, and after a year of anticipation and rumors, we finally know that the newest fashion resident will find his way to Disney World in November of this year.
Guests to Disney World who’ve been awaited the arrival of Hatbox Ghost no longer have to guess at when the happy haunt will materalize at the ultra-popular dark ride in Orlando, Florida. D23 just gave us a finite timeframe of November to expect when the awesome animatronic made popular at Disneyland will make his debut at Disney World. Personally, I’m extremely excited for this addition as the Hatbox Ghost, originally created by famed Disney Imagineer Yale Gracey is one of my favorite parts of Haunted Mansion lore. Not only is he getting ready to move permanantly to Florida, Hatbox Ghost has also made a name for himself after being played by Jared Leto in the latest Haunted Mansion reboot that released eariler this summer.
NEW: The Hatbox Ghost will materialize inside the Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom Park in late November. pic.twitter.com/KPuG4eZC6B
Fans are sure to flock to the mansion once Hatbox Ghost materializes within its walls, so if he’s an immediate must-see for you and your family, you’ll want to hurry and make sure you have a trip booked. The ride is expected to be closed for a couple of days as Imagineers install and test Hatbox Ghost, but we’re certain it won’t be long before he’s ready to scare the pants off of riders at Disney World. We’ll be there and let you know once Hatbox Ghost makes his official debut in November, so stay tuned friends.
A man is suing Disney after he was thrown from a ride…and it’s all Disney’s fault, he claims. Billy Williams is an Orange County, Florida, local who visits the Parks often. In 2022 he suffered a fall that he alleges caused him permanent damage. He’s now seeking compensation from WaltDisneyWorld.
On April 28, 2022, Williams was at Magic Kingdom with his wife having a magical day. The good times wouldn’t last, however. As the couple boarded their Doom Buggy on the Haunted Mansion, Williams suddenly fell. The ride uses Disney’s omnimover system, which means the vehicles never stop moving. Guests match the pace on a moving walkway and enter moving vehicles. This allows for rides to accommodate more guests per hour, which keeps lines shorter. It also avoids “the ferris wheel effect,” where rides are interrupted as others get on and off.
The problem came when the ride suddenly stopped when Williams was boarding. He claims a Haunted Mansion Cast Member “hit the emergency stop button” as he entered the vehicle, which caused him to lurch forward and fall out of the Doom Buggy and onto the ground. Cast Members must stop the ride occasionally if there is a problem or if someone with mobility issues enters or exits the ride.
Williams is suing Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, US, Inc., alleging the theme park was negligent for “failing to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition” and failed to correct or make him aware of the dangerous situation. In the lawsuit, filed in Orange County Courts last month, he is seeking $50,000, alleging that he has suffered “severe and permanent injuries” as a result of the fall.
Due to the ongoing nature the legal action, Disney has not commented at this time. It is unknown if Disney offered Williams any compensation or accommodation for his injuries when they were sustained last spring.
The overall hype and the star-studded cast of Disney’s recent Haunted Mansion film didn’t translate at the box office this past weekend. It turns out that Disney Enterprises were the foolish mortals in putting the classic theme park attraction film up against the fearsome Barbenheimer. However, the real scheduling issue occurred long before competition films Barbie and Oppenheimer gained any traction.
The question is: Why schedule a spooky, haunted movie for a mid-summer release over a Halloween debut?
The Walt Disney Company is usually top-notch in its theming, which leads audiences to question why Haunted Mansion may not have made more sense to release in the fall during the designated spooky season. Variety asked the same question and cited two main reasons.
Summertime can be a great time to draw families into movie theaters. Kids are out of school, and parents need a solid way to collect their families and beat the heat. While Haunted Mansion had the makings of a promising family film, director Justin Simien and cast members like Rosario Dawson, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Owen Wilson had no idea they would have to compete with the behemoth that is Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
After the film came in a distant third place on its opening weekend, Disney may have realized their error. Kids and families are available, but they’d rather spend their summer days with Barbie at the beach than a ghost-ridden mansion. Variety notes that the actor’s strike also “hobbled” Haunted Mansion’s ability to market.
Maybe The Walt Disney Co. knew ahead of time that the Haunted Mansion film would be met tepidly in theaters, so they picked a summer release date that allows the film to hit its streaming platform right around the Halloween season. Variety sites Disney’s 1993 Hocus Pocus as a theatrical flop that became a cult classic only in its afterlife. Is this what Disney hopes for the new Haunted Mansion film, too?
It’s hard to imagine Disney Plus will have a surge of sign-ups around Halloween just to access 2023’s Haunted Mansion, but scarier things have happened.
The new Haunted Mansion (2023) movie may become another flop from The Walt Disney Company. Although it hasn’t spawned the level of controversy associated with other films in the past 12 months, such as Lightyear (2022), Strange World (2022), or The Little Mermaid (2023), it will likely follow in the footsteps of a long life of recent box office failures.
In addition to the titles above, additional box office bombs include Elemental (2023), Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). As long as audiences choose to avoid seeing Disney movies in the theaters, the studio will continue hemorrhaging money.
It was reported earlier this year that in the past 12 months, the Walt Disney Company was estimated to have lost almost $1 billion in box office flops. And that figure was before the release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), which in the end could lose another couple hundred million.
Walt Disney Pictures hoped the Haunted Mansion (2023) would be a chance to turn things around. After all, it’s not a controversial live action remake, and it’s a movie based on a popular theme park ride at Disneyland (and the Magic Kingdom at Disney World). But its expected box office numbers for this weekend are $25-$30 million domestically. For comparison, Avengers: Endgame (2019) made $357 million on its opening weekend. Granted, that’s an established franchise, but those numbers are from four years ago. But when compared to The Haunted Mansion (2003) with Eddie Murphy, the opening box office is about the same ($24.3 million).
Even though $30 million (at best) is still a nice chunk of change, it’s not a win when the movie allegedly cost the studio $150 million to produce. That figure also includes no marketing or promotional costs, which could easily be another $50-$100 million. Again, Disney seems to find itself where the costs of producing its movies ends up setting a bar too high for the box office. This was the problem with The Little Mermaid (2023), Lightyear (2022), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).
Adding to the lukewarm box office numbers (which usually drop each week a movie is in theaters), the Haunted Mansion (2023) has received few positive reviews. Currently, it holds a critic score of 41% on Rotten Tomatoes (and it drops to 24% when filtered down to Top Critics).
Audiences seem to enjoy the movie with a score of 83%. However, a favorable audience score alone may not be enough to dig the Haunted Mansion (2023) out of its 6′ hole.
For those mortals (and Disney fans) interested in the new movie directed by Justin Simien, it’s in theaters this weekend and stars Tiffany Haddish, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, and Lakeith Stanfield.
