Latest Disney News: ‘Haunted Mansion’ is 3 Disney obsessions gone rogue as the Mouse House mocks its own $28B wings

Disney is having a moment — with chaos on one end, carelessness on the other, and its truest villain stirring up nostalgia in the middle.

Evidently, Disney loves committing two very costly mistakes, in addition to a new one it has learned from its peers. Perhaps it’s this peculiar passion that has seen it blatantly mocking the 13-year-long journey of its most beloved former villain. And while we are on the topic of villains, who else shudders at the memory of Disney’s most malignant baddie, one who trumps every over-the-top, world-domination-crazy antagonist the Mouse House has ever created?

Haunted Mansion’s drowning box office status shows Disney believes in the “If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist” school of object impermanence

You know when a child plays hide-and-seek with their parents and hides in full view, believing that if they close their eyes, no one can see them? Well, looks like Disney is doing something very similar, and its latest failure i.e., Haunted Mansion is only outlining its glaring errors — three, to be precise.

For starters, Haunted Mansion has a towering budget of $150 million. Thus, even if it makes a whopping $60-$70 million at the box office, in the shadow of Barbenheimer, it will still be called a flop because of its over-inflated budget. And this is not the first time Disney has spent more than a project needs, only for the end result not to reflect the money invested. (Yes, Secret Invasion, with your crazy over-$200 million budget, we are looking at you).

Secondly, there is the fact that Disney has been relentlessly making remakes for a while now, and a majority of them have tanked with such severity that the production house has lost almost a billion dollars behind its obsession.

And the third one, which has hit Haunted Mansion where it hurts the most — the choice of its release date. Not only is the film fighting a losing battle against Barbenheimer — and losing in its own genre because of a brilliant $4 million indie horror — its release timetable is all wrong. While good horror films win no matter when they are released (see: Smile), those with less brilliance rely on landing at the right time, which would have been around Halloween for Haunted Mansion. But as with many recently-released horror flicks, Disney seemingly marched on in the dark.

The MCU is what gives Disney its freedom to fly, and yet Loki season 2 trailer happily disrespects it

Before we get off on the wrong foot, let me clarify — Loki is one of the rare Marvel series that is actually worth watching. But its very exceptional trailer for season two totally disregards Loki’s entire storyline in the MCU, the very cinematic universe through which the Mouse has earned over $28 billion at the box office.

In the trailer, we see the God of Mischief dealing with enemies with a strong green energy blast that dispatches the strongest adversaries. Great to know that anyone would have one hell of a time trying to beat the Asgardian prince, but… where were these powers in The Avengers — or, well, any time the OG Loki appeared in the MCU? 

If he had these powers, why did he let the Hulk, who would be nothing in front of this massive energy blast, throw him around like a rag doll? Why didn’t he use this in Thor: Dark World, or any number of times he was facing off against an enemy?

Is this Marvel getting stuck in another one of its continuity errors, or is it just blatantly disregarding the storyline of one of the most beloved MCU characters?

Maleficent, Ursula, The Evil Queen, etc., can all take a bow as Disney’s most malignant villain is finally remembered

Disney is known for its attempts at grandiosity, and so its more popular villains are always bigger and flashier, with massive aspirations like conquering the throne and ruling a kingdom. But at the end of the day, are they as terrifying as Frollo? Hunchback of Notre Dame’s genocidal abuser, who ditches the world of fantasy to portray what bad people in the real world are truly like? Disney might stick to its fancy villains, but fans know who terrified their very souls.