Check out Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota in first-look photo from Disney’s Haunted Mansion movie directed by Justin Simien.
Disney is giving the Haunted Mansion another spin on the big-screen, twenty years after the Eddie Murphy adaptation crashed and burned. Just judging by the first trailer, they’ve already done a better job this time around. The new film boasts a fun cast, including Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota, a fan favorite character who is featured in the session scene for the theme-park ride.
Entertainment Weekly has released a first-look image of Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota in Haunted Mansionand you can check that out below.
Haunted Mansion director Justin Simien teased that Jamie Lee Curtis’ take on Madame Leota is a “little subversive” et un “little funny” when compared to the theme-park character. “She starts off as one of the relics, one of the items, one of the aspects of the house that has to be discovered, but becomes a functional character and a useful ally in the film,” Simien said.
Just as with the Haunted Mansion ride itself, Justin Simien wanted to do as many practical effects as he could. “You know there’s a trick being played on you, but you’re not sure how they did it. The Pepper’s Ghost effect [during the ride’s finale]it’s so old school, you know it’s not a screen, but it’s because it’s so old school that it feels like it’s really there,” Simien explained. “There’s a practicality to the tricks on the ride that I felt was important. When I took the job I said, ‘I don’t want to make CGI soup. We have to build the house.’ Even if we’re not doing an effect practically, we have to make it look like we did, because there’s something about the grounded-ness of the ride that makes it what it is. It makes it charming.“
The new film follows a woman and her son who enlists a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters. Haunted Mansion stars LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Dan Levy, Jared Leto, Chase W. Dillon, Hasan Minhaj, Winona Ryder, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Haunted Mansion will hit theaters on July 28th.