Haunted Mansion finally surpasses $100M at the box office

Disney’s Haunted Mansion continues the lackluster box office performances of the latest films from the studio, but in positive news, it’s surpassed $100 million at the box office. Notably, the late 2022 sci-fi adventure, Strange World, also faced an exceptionally middling box office. It only raked in a worldwide $73.6 million, leaving it shy of recouping its $135–180 million production costs, which of course, doesn’t take into consideration marketing.

Haunted Mansion is Disney’s second attempt at enlisting A-listers in Hollywood to bring one of its starring attractions to life in a live-action film. Eddie Murphy starred in The Haunted Mansion in 2003, spawning a great deal of not-so-well-liked reception. The film ended up with a middling 13% from critics and slightly better — but still pretty bad — 31% with the audience.

While the Disney original film saw issues mixing humor and scary scenes, leading to mixed responses, the new flick starring Tiffany Haddish, LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, and more got off lighter than its precursor. That’s not to say it’s seen glowing reviews, but critics and audiences are at odds again, with critics once again failing to find the humor or scares, landing it at 38% in contrast to the highly-praised 84% from the audience.

Is Haunted Mansion Profitable?

Unfortunately, the spooky comedy still has some ground to cover before it recoups its budget, but of course, most of the time, that budget is only the production costs, so it’s likely that more was sunk into the movie than the reported $150 million. It does pull on the heartstrings that this film isn’t doing so hot, considering the passion director Justin Simien exuded and his confidence that the movie left things open for a sequel or a spin-off.

If the flick continues down its path of — at the least — recouping its production costs, it’ll likely go the way of the wind, and Simien will have to fight tooth and nail to greenlight a new entry.