In 99 percent of cases, movies have to make money in order to be deemed worthy of a sequel, although there have proven to be several exceptions to the rule in the past. However, based on just how badly it bombed, it would be unreasonable to expect Haunted Mansion to be among them.
Director Justin Simien faced a tough task from the outset by rebooting a 20 year-old family favorite that was hardly a classic in his own right, with extra pressure coming from the $157 million budget and questionable release date that placed it right in the path of the Barbenheimer phenomenon.
To the surprise of not a lot of people, the supernatural spectacular bombed horrendously and didn’t even come close to recouping its budget, hammering the nail into any plans for a prospective franchise. With that in mind, Simien’s thoughts on a sequel shared in an interview with ScreenRant won’t leave many jaws on the floor.
“No, no talks. I have no idea what they want to do with the future of the franchise, if there is a franchise. I have no clue, but I certainly was really inspired by the experience. And I’ve been spending a lot of time in my strike sort of tending to my own garden with regard to writing, and I think you’ll see the influence of this experience in the next things I do, no matter if it’s another Haunted Mansion movie, or if it’s something original that I write. We’ll see what the future holds.”
It would be safe to say that Haunted Mansion‘s goose is cooked as a viable big screen property, but Simien is a talented filmmaker destined to bounce back from the biggest setback of his career so far.