Report: Haunted Mansion Secretly Being Changed To Avoid Offending Disney Park Guests - Inside the Magic (2024)
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Posted on by Chloe James9 Comments
Rumor has it that a major change is heading for Haunted Mansion at Disneyland Resort.
Disney’s theme parks are packed with top-tier attractions, but few have reached icon status quite like Haunted Mansion. First opened at Disneyland Park in 1969, the dark ride put its own immersive spin on the haunted house concept, with guests boarding Ominmover vehicles known as a “Doom Buggy” to explore a New Orleans mansion packed with “999 Happy Haunts.”
In the decades since it first opened in New Orleans Square, the Haunted Mansion has inspired similar attractions across the globe. At Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom Park and Tokyo Disneyland, the Haunted Mansion is built in a Gothic revival style and boasts a slightly longer ride experience.
Meanwhile, Disneyland Paris is home to Phantom Manor, which has a look more in line with the rest of the park’s Frontierland aesthetic. The attraction itself is also tonally darker than its sister parks.
On the other end of the spectrum, Hong Kong Disneyland’s equivalent, Mystic Manor, is free of any references to ghosts or death due to differences in Chinese culture. Instead, it focuses on a magic box that brings inanimate objects to life in a Victorian manor.
The attraction has even inspired two separate adaptations: one in 2003 starring Eddie Murphy and one in 2023 starring LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Rosario Dawson, and Danny DeVito. Both failed to set the box office alight or impress criticsbut have developed cult followings in their own right.
Despite all the varieties worldwide, Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion is still often considered the best of the lineup. It’s undergone its fair share of changes over the years, with new scares and technology integrated into the attraction. A festive overlay, Haunted Mansion Holiday – inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) – was also introduced for the first time in 2001 and continues to run at the park every Halloween and Christmas.
That will be the case in 2024. Before that day comes, however, the ride needs to complete its ongoing refurbishment. It first closed in January 2024, with Disney revealing that the queue would be totally reimagined during its closure “to immerse guests in enhanced theming,” with other new additions introduced to “build on the story and lore of the Haunted Mansion.”
But those may not be the only changes heading to Haunted Mansion. Rumor has it that when guests experience the regular version of the attraction again (most likely in 2025, as the ride will be in Haunted Mansion Holiday mode when it returns later this year), it may do so without one familiar scare.
Related: More Paranormal Activity at the Disney Parks
Fans are abuzz on Reddit that Disney is currently in the process of removing the hanging corpse seen in the stretching room before guests board the ride. Haunted Mansion’s disembodied “Ghost Host” points out that as the room has no doors or windows, it has no way out. “Of course,” he adds, “there’s always myway,” with lightning then illuminating a hanging corpse hanging from the ceiling.
There have been rumors that Disney will remove this effect from the attraction in order to be more sensitive and not trivialize suicide. Some guests have complained that this scene feels particularly triggering, with petitions even set up in the past.
Disney is well aware of these complaints. Back in 2021, Michele Hobbs – who works as a producer for Walt Disney Imagineering and previously managed a refurbishment of the attraction – toldLos Angeles Times that the scene’s removal has “been discussed for sure” and that “it’s definitely something that we’re thinking about.”
On Haunted Mansion Holiday, the ceiling of the stretching room is covered with a tarp. The idea is that this tarp will remain in place all year round, and something else will be projected during this section of the ride.
Nooses have been removed from other versions of Haunted Mansion in the past. Nearly all the nooses were removed from Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris in 2023, except for the one that appears during the stretching room scene.
Sensitivity updates have also occurred to other attractions, such as the removal of “we wants the redhead” from Pirates of the Caribbean (which saw said redhead become a pirate auctioning off loot instead of an object at an auction) and the replacement of Splash Mountain – which was inspired by the problematic filmSong of the South(1946) – with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
These changes have kicked in at all Disney locations with these attractions, with the exception of Tokyo Disneyland.
For now, the Haunted Mansion rumor is just that: a rumor. However, considering the fact that Disney itself has admitted to considering this switch in the past, we wouldn’t be surprised if these rumors are correct and the attraction debuts sans-noose in 2025.
Do you think Disneyland should remove the noose from Haunted Mansion?
According to the Disneyland Park Daily Schedule, the Haunted Mansion will be Closed for Refurbishment beginning January 22, 2024. I'm afraid that we don't have a projected end date for this project, but I would recommend that you keep following the Disney Parks Blog for news and updates.
The grounds at the popular New Orleans Square attraction are undergoing changes to include an expanded outdoor queue with enhanced theming, as well as a new retail shop adjacent to the ride's exit. As work on the outdoor queue continues, guests can gain access to the Haunted Mansion exclusively through a virtual queue.
The Haunted Mansion closed for refurbishment on January 22, 2024, while the Grim Grinning Ghosts materialize an expanded queue and a new retail shop. Since a reopening date has not been announced yet, even Madame Leota cannot predict the expected closure dates for January 2025 at this time.
In all versions of the Haunted Mansion, silhouettes of Mickey's head can be seen hidden throughout the attraction. These easter eggs are referred to as, "Hidden Mickeys" and are a staple of Disney Theme Parks. In the Great Hall there are three dishes arranged in the shape of Mickey's head.
But here's something worth rattling a few bones about: Disneyland revealed that the haunting experience will return in the late summer of 2024, with construction completed, just as Halloween Time at the Disneyland Resort take corporeal form.
Disneyland's Haunted Mansion will still be under construction when it reopens. View of parkgoers waiting in line to enter the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland. The long closure of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion is nearing an end, but construction won't be done when the ride reopens, park officials confirmed.
New Disneyland Entrance Gates — Later 2024 — Disneyland turnstiles are getting an update in 2024. Disneyland is adding more entrance lanes and making the gates more stroller-friendly and ADA-compliant. The new automatic gates are said to open after a cast member scans and validates theme park admission.
In 1969, the ghosts that appear in the ride were created with a clever, low-tech method know as a Pepper's Ghost, which is effectively a 2D illusion created with reflections and named after John Henry Pepper, who used this projection approach for entertainment during the 1800s.
Principal photography took place from mid-October 2021 to late-February 2022 on a $150 million budget. Haunted Mansion premiered at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, on July 15, 2023, and was released in the United States on July 28 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
As soon as you enter your boat, you are instantly immersed in the world of pirates--there is nothing else like it! Fortunately, you do not have to worry about Pirates of the Caribbean sailing away anytime soon. There are no current plans for this attraction to be refurbished, let alone for it to close permanently.
When you enter the mansion, you'll be taken into the stretching room for a brief introduction/preshow by the Ghost Host. The Disneyland version employs an elevator to create the effect that the room stretches; in Disney World, the ceiling goes up instead.
Immediately prior to entering Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion attraction, you'll see a headstone that reads, “Dear Sweet Leota, Beloved by All / In Regions Beyond Now, But Having a Ball.” Leota is the Madame Leota character that also appears mid-ride as the floating head in a crystal ball during the séance scene.
The millions of guests that have explored the shadowy confines of the Haunted Mansion have seen Leota “Lee” Toombs Thomas—or at least the likeness of her face. She appears as Madame Leota, the disembodied head that speaks from inside a crystal ball at Disney's creepiest and most ghoulishly fun attraction.
Del Toro was no longer attached as the project's director in July 2013. After years in development hell, Disney officially announced Haunted Mansion in August 2020, with Dippold signed on to write a new screenplay. Simien negotiated to direct the film by April 2021, and was officially confirmed three months later.
1. The Haunted Mansion is the only attraction located in four different lands in four different Disney Parks: New Orleans Square at Disneyland; Liberty Square at Walt Disney World; Fantasyland at Tokyo Disneyland; and Frontierland at Disneyland Paris.
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