Disney’s Best Haunted Mansion Movie Quietly Came Out 2 Years Before $150 Million Box Office Disaster

Perhaps surprisingly, Disney’s best Haunted Mansion movie came out before 2023’s $150 million box office disaster. The definitive adaptation of Disney’s popular theme park attraction isn’t 2003’s horror-comedy The Haunted Mansion either. In fact, the best movie version of the much-loved property had a dead-silent, straight-to-streaming launch on Disney+ just two years ago. While the recent Haunted Mansion has a disappointing 38% aggregate critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, the Eddie Murphy-led The Haunted Mansion holds an even more upsetting rating: a dismal 13%. Ultimately, neither film elevates its source material, nor do their shoehorned narratives stand out on their own merits.

However, reviews aren’t the only metric that point to these Haunted Mansion movies’ failures. Both the 2003 and 2023 big-budget adaptations of the ghoulish theme park attraction failed at the box office too. In part, that was due to both films’ unwieldy budgets: The Haunted Mansion cost $90 million to make, while the more recent box office bomb Haunted Mansion totaled a staggering $150 million. That said, a third, lesser-known Haunted Mansion adaptation stands as the franchise’s best effort. A more spirited outing, this under-the-radar Disney+ special also didn’t have the chance to be a theatrical misfire.

Muppets Haunted Mansion Is Still Better Than Disney’s 2003 & 2023 Movies

With a fresh 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, Muppets Haunted Mansion is not only the best-reviewed adaptation but it’s poised to become a seasonal cult classic. The movie’s success hinges on how well the source material and The Muppets brand complement each other. In Muppets Haunted Mansion, Gonzo and Pepe face their fears and spend one night in the ghost-filled titular residence. The movie takes plenty of cues and in-jokes from the popular theme park attraction: Will Arnett takes on the role of Ghost Host, while Miss Piggy appears as “Madam Pigota” – a riff on the ghostly fortune-teller who resides in the mansion’s crystal ball.

That said, there are many ways Muppets Haunted Mansion is better than the Eddie Murphy movie (and the 2023 attempt). With timeless wit and charm, the Halloween special leverages the Jim Henson characters’ signature absurdist, self-referential humor to great success. It’s a strategy The Muppets’ team has employed before when adapting popular properties, ​​​​​from 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island and 2005’s The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz. Like these other films, Muppets Haunted Mansion balances humor and heart in a way the feature-length Haunted Mansion movies struggle to do. Plus, the straight-to-streaming approach didn’t hurt: in addition to costing less, the movie probably garnered more Disney+ subscribers.

Why Disney’s Haunted Mansion Movies Both Failed At The Box Office & With Critics

In short, Muppets Haunted Mansion succeeds because it works with its source material. Unlike 2003’s The Haunted Mansion and 2023’s Haunted Mansion, it doesn’t inject too much new story into the mix. In the other adaptations, the padded narrative greatly detracts from the fun mansion lore and fails to build any intrigue on its own. It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which 2023’s Haunted Mansion would have ever made back its wildly inflated budget. It fails to enrich its source material or pay homage, and, like its 2003 predecessor, it suffers from being neither funny nor scary. Muppets Haunted Mansion, however, brings some much-needed life to the franchise.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes