Though audiences have eagerly enjoyed the movie, director Justin Simien shares his candid feelings on Haunted Mansion's negative reviews. Based on the Disneyland ride of the same name, the 2023 movie centered on a group of paranormal experts as they're hired by a single mom to help clear out the various ghosts inhabiting the New Orleans mansion her and her son just moved into. Featuring an ensemble cast led by LaKeith Stanfield and Owen Wilson, Haunted Mansion was a critical and commercial disappointment, falling short of its reported $157 million production budget.

While speaking exclusively with Screen Rant to discuss the movie's home media release, Simien opened up about Haunted Mansion's negative reviews. The director expressed seeing the critical response to be "a bummer", even feeling that some critics may have had alternate agendas behind their reviews, while simultaneously celebrating the audience response to the movie and humorously acknowledging the divide is typically reversed for his movies. See what Simien explained below:

It's a bummer, to be honest. It's a bummer to feel like people don't get something that you're doing, and that you've worked so hard on, but ultimately, it's usually been the other way around. [Laughs] Especially with Dear White People coming out of Sundance, where critics loved Dear White People, and audiences eventually loved it. But at first, it was incredibly divisive, and it was incredibly polarizing. So, with this film, it was interesting, I went into it wanting to make a crowd pleaser, and kind of wanting to prove to myself that I could, that I knew how to bring an audience through a story. So, I'm glad that that part of it came to fruition, I'm glad I was able to accomplish that. I don't typically read my own reviews, I learned that lesson a while ago, especially when they're good. But on this one, I read a couple of them, and it felt like, I don't know, I wasn't quite sure what movie they were talking about all the time. It felt like there were some other things going on in those reviews, I gotta say, than just what was happening in the movie, and that kind of thing is just out of your control, you know? I think, if anything, it was actually a really great lesson as a filmmaker, in terms of who you make your movies for, and why you make them, and what your own marker for success is. To me, I'd rather have the audience go on the journey I want them to go on than anything. So, I don't know, the rest is just kind of take it as you get it.

Haunted Mansion Is Destined To Become A Cult Classic (Again)

Holding a 37% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the majority of criticism for Haunted Mansion was aimed towards the movie's balance of horror and comedy, with many reviewers feeling it didn't go far enough in either direction to fully recommend the movie. Despite this, there were some who showered praise on the movie's ensemble cast, with Wilson and Stanfield in particular garnering acclaim for their charming performances alongside their co-stars.

On the flip side, audiences have been overwhelmingly positive in their feelings for the reboot, with the movie currently sitting at an impressive 84% on RT. Despite this, the movie still failed to recoup its production budget at the box office, having only brought in just shy of $116 million against its $157.8 million budget which, when paired with marketing costs, has landed it the label of a box office bomb. A variety of factors have been attributed to this underperformance, including the SAG-AFTRA strike preventing actors from promoting the movie closer to its release, the then-ongoing battle between Barbie and Oppenheimer and summer release for a title better suited for a Halloween date.

Despite this initial stumbling, Haunted Mansion still seems primed to become a cult classic among Disney fans in the coming years. In addition to boasting a high RT audience score, the movie is hitting Disney+ in time for the Halloween season. Furthermore, the Eddie Murphy-led Haunted Mansion adaptation suffered worse reviews upon its release, but has since gone on to be appreciated by those who grew up with the movie, assuring that regardless of how critics feel about the Disney ride-based titles, audiences remained thoroughly entertained by the efforts of their creative teams.