‘I would really love to sit down with him and talk’: The director of a Disney blockbuster forced to attend his premiere alone wants to speak to the boss

With actors currently on strike and refusing to attend red carpet events or conduct interview with the press, you’d have thought that Disney might have had the common sense to quietly shelve plans to hold a glitzy premiere for upcoming reboot Haunted Mansion given the circumstances.

Instead, the Mouse House staged the extravagant event anyway, and even roped in performers dressed as Disney characters to compensate for the fact that not a single member of the movie’s star-studded cast was in attendance. Neither was writer Kate Dippold for obvious reasons, which left director Justin Simien to fly the flag alone.

CEO Bob Iger is almost always a presence at any premiere his company lends its name to, but he didn’t show up either, although it would be speculative to say it had anything to do with him pissing off everyone in Hollywood with his recent comments.

Regardless of Simien being the only one of Haunted Mansion‘s key creatives to turn up for the big screen debut of the $150 million blockbuster, he still addressed the Iger-sized elephant in the room with Variety, and admitted he’d love to speak to the man in charge.

“I would really love to sit down with him and talk. I don’t if how he meant it is how it felt to me. I would love to talk to him about the reality that we all face as artists to make the impossible happen every day.”

It remains to be seen if Simien will get his wish, but for the time being, let’s wait and see if Haunted Mansion manages to buck Disney’s recent trend by not bombing at the box office, even if the signs are already there that it won’t.