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Shannon Tindle wrote:Here’s a little teaser I put together for a project I was developing at Disney. Had an incredible crew working on this.

Voice by Marsai Martin
BGs by Sunmin Inn
Motion Graphics by Daniel Hashimoto
Animation by Matt Williames
Character Color Styling by Rachelle Reyes
Character Design by Shannon Tindle
Directed by Shannon Tindle

Shannon Tindle wrote:It’s a teaser for a Haunted Mansion project I was developing for Disney. There are a lot of casualties in development. Unfortunately, this was one of them.

Shannon Tindle wrote:It was actually developed in 2015-2016 as a series and was totally unrelated to the previous versions.

Q: Did you and your team animate something else or that's all?

Shannon Tindle: This is as far as we got in terms of finished animation.

The project was developed last year with a small group of people as part of Tindle’s overall development deal with Disney Television Animation (DTVA). Tindle wrote pilots for two different versions of a possible Haunted Mansion animated series: one of which would be an ongoing series and the other a limited series.

“My goal was to take inspiration from all the backstories created by the artists at WED [the name of Disney’s Imagineering division] and stitch it into one, giant narrative,” Tindle tells Cartoon Brew. “The story would span several years and focus on different characters, but add up to one big, interconnected story.” Tonally, the series would have had “a lot of fun and silly elements to it,” he explains, but it would be contained within a larger story in which viewers entered the show through the eyes of a character struggling with grief over a recently-lost loved one. “I love playing with tone,” Tindle says, “and animation (particularly a property that has ghosts as part of its DNA) is particularly good at weaving broad fun with deeply emotional stories.”

While it doesn’t look like Disney will make the project, Tindle’s teaser has received a strongly enthusiastic reaction after he posted it on Twitter. As for Tindle himself, he remains enthused too. “I’d still love to jump back in and make this thing!”

Tindle told Nerdist, “I’d written three drafts total, one for an ongoing series and two for a limited series (both featuring the same main characters). We’d begun early visual development work and were starting to put a schedule together. Disney was always very excited and supportive, but it’s a big company with lots of divisions and I believe they had other plans for the property. I have nothing but gratitude for the freedom I was given to explore such a wonderful property.”

Tindle was planning to take inspiration from all the backstories created by Imagineering, and as mentioned above, was going to focus on the various characters over the course of the series. “There are lots of incredible characters in the Haunted Mansion and I wanted to take a stab at including several: the Hitchhiking Ghosts, the Hatbox Ghost, the Bride, etc. However, I was most excited by two original characters I created for the series and how they would interact with and be changed by the Haunted Mansion,” he explained.

While this particular incarnation of The Haunted Mansion isn't going forward — Tindle is no longer with Disney — he gave SYFY WIRE some intel on what might have been.

Tindle's first exposure to the Haunted Mansion came when he was just 5 years old, but it "made an immediate impression." He went on to say that he immediately attempted to develop the property as a series as soon as he joined Disney's animation team. "The Haunted Mansion has a such a specific tone, mixing funny and scary, and I wanted to echo that tone in the series," he said. "So I began with a character who would be invited to the Haunted Mansion (just like the ride) but needed to engage with the ghosts in order to deal with a very personal conflict. I love fantasy and feel that the most successful fantasy stories engage the audience with very relatable situations."

According to Tindle, Martain's character was named Annie, and the proposed show was about her emotional journey. "I don't want to get too specific, but I really wanted to show how someone deals with grief after the loss of a loved one. The main character NEEDS the Haunted Mansion in order to move on." And what about the other "999 happy haunts" living in the mansion? Tindle and his collaborators had plenty of plans for them as well. "It was still very early, but I was very interested in the Hitchhiking Ghosts and the Hatbox Ghost," he said. "Everybody is interested in the Hatbox Ghost, because he was taken out of the ride for several years. I believe Guillermo del Toro's version featured him prominently." He added that Disney Imagineering "was made up of an incredible team of storytellers and artists" who "gave backstories to virtually every character inside the mansion."

As part of the initial pitch, The Haunted Mansion animated series was also envisioned as a potential limited series. "I wanted the show to deal with several generations, ghosts, the living, coming into each other's lives than fading into time, like real life," recalled Tindle. "We hadn't dived deep enough to dig into the obscure characters, but we definitely would have. I was also interested in bringing in other Disney characters. Their vault is HUGE!!!"

The impressive animated pitch utilized Tindle's character design, and it was animated by Matt Williames, Sunmin Inn, and Daniel Hashimoto, with color styling by Rachelle Reyes. Tindle said that the project was in development for a little over a year, then it was carried on for a bit longer by Dave Thomas after Tindle left to write and direct another project. Sadly, there is no completed version of the pilot episode hiding in the Disney vault. However, Tindle was quick to say that he would return "in a heartbeat!" if the renewed attention to the project sparks new life in the Haunted Mansion.

Sydney is the newest resident of the Haunted Mansion, a retirement home for wayward ghosts. Now she has to learn how to scare visiting mortals in order to earn her keep--all while resident mean ghost Constance is out to make it all as difficult as possible! But with the help of our favorite grim, grinning ghosts, Sydney just might pull it off!