Margos wrote:UmbrellaFish wrote:
I know! That's who I immediately thought of when I saw the thread's title. He must be taking a break from UD.
When he comes back, I think he'll be like:


It's nice to know that I've become with synonmous around here with both Greek mythology and the HM around here.

Just got back from a nice long week at the shore so you can imagine my surprise when I heard of this.
I'm just incredibly floored by this news. I absolutely can't wait to see what Del Torro has in store for the Mansion!

To me he is the perfect director for the role. Having read many of this interviews, this seems just as much of a dream to him as it would to any Doombug who is given the chance to produce a big budget HM picture. As Duster already stated, he has long proven to be a huge HM fan (he even stated in an interview he has a room full of HM memrobilia, including some original Marc Davis sketches!), and I can't think of anyone else better suited to make a HM movie.
"Only producing and co-writing with Matthew Robbins for now. I would love to direct it if the timing allows it but I already have the next directing project ready to be announced in a week or so. Big and unexpected and full of invention. Haunted Mansion is, however, so perfect--because into it I can finally pour decades--most of my life--of admiration and veneration for Rolly Crump, Marc Davis and Claude Coats and the incredibly stylized and impossibly cool world they created. The movie I am imagining and that I dream of bringing forth is a full-on shrine to the feel we had as kids going into these E-ticket rides. For some people Haunted Mansion is just a ride for others, like me, who got caught in it at the precise age, it is almost a way of life."
This quote to me alone absolutely makes me giddy. Not just knowing how much of a big fan he is of the attraction, but how much high esteem he holds for the original Mansion creators and their work.
As for the original Mansion movie, I don't really dislike it, but to me it's just a very mediocore film that really does very poor justice to the attraction and the genius of Davis, Coats, and Crump. As Del Torro said, it's time Disney went back to their dark past such as Chernabog or Maleficent and create scenes that are very chilling. To me the original film just lacked any suspsense or eerieness of the attraction (aside from the very missplaced zombies), and turned it into a silly romp with poor writing. What makes the ride so enduring is that is has many Claude Coats dark and even frightening elements in it (lost souls trapped behind locked doors, an undead man trying to escape a nailed up coffin, the pop up ghosts), the darkly humorous Marc Davis characters, and the pure macabre bizarre oddities of Rolly Crump, such as the human body parts of the architecture. Knowing Del Torro and the work that he's done, combined with his love for the Mansion, I can't think of a more perfect person for this film.