During today’s Disney Live Action, Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios presentation at the D23 Expo 2022, the company showed a clip of the upcoming feature-length live-action adaptation of the fans’ favorite theme park ride haunted housearrives in 2023. Not only was the clip packed with the merry haunts that Disney fans have come to love over the years — Hitchhiking Ghosts, Hatbox Ghost, and even Constance — but also a surprise appearance from the “Queen of Scary Movies” yourself, Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween Ends), who will appear in the film as Madame Leota.
Fans who attended Disney Live Action, Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios presentation were treated to a clip of the haunted house film with Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, a single mother; Lakeith Stanfield as Ben Matthias, a widow who has become a failed paranormal expert; Tiffany Haddish as Harriet, a clairvoyant; Danny DeVito as a history professor at the university; and Owen Wilson as Kent, a priest (but he’s no ordinary priest, he’s a… Wild Wild West priest with a lucky crucifix). The clip was also a first look at characters Disney fans already know from the Haunted Mansion ride, first introduced at Disneyland in 1969, will be Jared Leto, who will play Alistair Crump/Hatbox Ghost, and Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota, who appears to have an underground lair beneath the spookiest mansion in the park (and her lair is decked out in Doom Buggie-inspired chairs).
haunted house director Justin Simien also teased a slew of other exciting actor cameos during the presentation that will appear in the upcoming haunted house Movie: Winona Ryder, Dan Levy, Hasan Minhaj.
Justin Simien used to be a cast member
“For me, there was something about that ride that I felt was in the script,” Simien said as he introduced Jamie Lee Curtis, who arrived on the Hall23 stage in Doom Buggie along with the other cameo announcements. “It was funny and full of interesting characters, but with a dark edge. I just had to deal with it. I felt I knew how to make it. I love New Orleans and I felt I had a responsibility here to make it happen. make sure all the little Easter eggs are there.”
“I actually worked at Disneyland,” he said to thunderous applause from all the other former cast members. “I used to have real hair, and it was the best vacation job I’ve ever had. And every time I wasn’t working on the ride I was supposed to take, I was riding Pirates and my favorite ride, Haunted Mansion.”