Naturally, the success of Pirates has given Disney new hope that it’s ride-to-screen strategy can have big payoffs with big franchises… Which is why there are reportedly some spectacular adaptations in the works to bring Disney attractions to the big (and small) screen… Here are just a few of the projects either in-production, or rumored to be on Disney’s short-list.
?: The Jungle Cruise
THE RIDE: The Jungle Cruise opened alongside Disneyland in 1955 as the park’s starring attraction. Featuring unthinkable electro-mechanical creatures alongside its exotic river banks, the ride became an instant example of what Disney could bring to life. In the 1960s, Jungle Cruise was reimagined with help from veteran Disney animator-turned-Imagineer Marc Davis, who devised some of its more cleverly-staged and iconic scenes (like the “lost safari” who’s about to get “the point,” the Indian elephant bathing pool, and the lost ruins of Southeast Asia) and shifted the ride’s attitude toward the humor and puns it’s known for today.
The Jungle Cruise exists at Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, and Hong Kong Disneyland. In the 1990s, the arrival of a new neighbor at Disneyland – the Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure – rewrote the ride’s story and setting, wrapping the attraction in a 1930s narrative. As a result, the ride gained a new boathouse playing jazz standards and its boats were rusted and aged with tattered canvas canopies.
That “epic, adventurous” reset also took place in Florida, where the ride’s mythology was expanded by way of the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen, layering its own elaborate backstory onto the ride’s legendary lore. So while the Jungle Cruise remains a classic, an entire story has sprung up around it…
THE MOVIE: The Jungle Cruise’s 1930s setting and story seem to make the ride perfect for an “Indiana Jones” style film series delving into ancient adventures, lost ruins, and steaming jungles. A truly-exotic exploration into the same kind of serial adventure films that inspired Indy, a Jungle Cruise tied into the story of S.E.A.: The Society of Explorers and Adventurers would be an incredible concept.
However, the jury’s still out on whether Jungle Cruise will be a hit. While its setting and timeline may lend themselves to an epic, old-fashioned adventure film, the trailer gives Disney fans queasy flashbacks to those other over-the-top CGI family films (again, see Oz the Great and Powerful, John Carter, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Maleficent, Tomorrowland, Wrinkle in Time, Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Artemis Fowl, etc.) so dedicated to establishing a franchise that they forget to tell a good standalone story.
Indeed, insiders have reported in no uncertain terms that Disney is looking for Jungle Cruise to be “the next Pirates of the Caribbean” – a gut-wrenching forced-franchise death knell fans have heard one too many times. (See The Lone Ranger, John Carter, and The Chronicles of Narnia, each of which was imagined as the launch of a Harry Potter-sized multi-film epic franchise… oops.)
With Jungle Cruise be a fourth-wall-breaking CGI-filled family movie disconnected from reality and packed with modern humor? A legitimate adventure film filled with rich mythology, scenic design, and practical effects? Something uncomfortably in the middle? We’ll have to wait to find out… Though Jungle Cruise was en route to a summer 2020 release, the tentpole feature was pushed back a full year to summer 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
?: Big Thunder Mountain
THE RIDE: First opened at Disneyland in 1979, Big Thunder Mountain was among the last of a generation of relatively cheap thrill rides that permeated the parks after Walt’s death. In fact, the ride only exists because it was intentionally pulled out of a much larger project that would’ve given Magic Kingdom a Western-themed version of Pirates of the Caribbean, as chronicled in our must-read feature, Possibilityland: Western River Expedition. Rather than an expensive and elaborate dark ride, Big Thunder Mountain would quickly and cheaply bolster the tired, dusty Frontierland (given that pop culture had moved on from The Lone Ranger and Howdy Doody by the ’70s). And the thrill ride was enough to support Disney Parks temporarily before the more cinematic Eisner era that would follow.
In its own way, though, “the wildest ride in the wilderness” became its own kind of Disney classic, the rustic red peaks forever synonymous with Disney’s castle parks. The ride was given even more prominence within Disneyland Paris’ one-of-a-kind Frontierland, where the mountain’s more epic backstory merges with the heartbreaking love story concocted for the park’s Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor – Paris’ spectacular, new take on the Haunted Mansion.
THE SHOW: In 2013, Disney officially ordered a pilot episode of a TV series based on the Western-set roller coaster, but it was scrapped shortly thereafter. There’s no telling if the 2016 debut of HBO’s big-budget series Westworld (based on the novel by Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame) would make Disney more or less likely to pursue a Western series of its own, but it’s a shame.
Especially when we see the way that Disney created an adventurous, exciting, haunting love story around the town of Thunder Mesa to coincide with Disneyland Paris’ version of the ride or the extended mythology of the Possibilityland: Discovery Bay built off of the mountain’s sensational story, it’s easy to see how spectacular a series about the town could be. Maybe for Disney+? We’ll see…
?: The Haunted Mansion
THE MOVIE: Way back in 2010, Disney announced at San Diego Comic Con that a new adaptation of the Haunted Mansion was in the works, this time with acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro writing and producing. He said at the time, “We are not making it a comedy. We are making it scary and fun at the same time, but the scary will be scary.” Del Toro also noted that he was aiming for a PG-13 film, starring the infamous and elusive Hatbox Ghost as the main spectre haunting the household. Allegedly, the screenplay was submitted in 2012, and as recently as 2015 rumblings of who would star and who would direct made waves.
Given the massive resurgence in psychological and supernatural horror films in the past decade, a “scary scary” Haunted Mansion film feels more right than ever. We can’t help but salivate about a Haunted Mansion movie drawn from the playbook of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House or the long-running The Conjuring film series with its expanded mythology of ghosts and demons. But the 2010s came to a close, and Del Toro’s Haunted Mansion didn’t seem any closer to reality…
In August 2020, The Hollywood Reporter exclusively announced that Disney’s new Haunted Mansion film was officially moving forward… but Del Toro wasn’t attached. Instead, the latest reboot of the film will reportedly be helmed by Katie Dippold (writer on NBC’s Parks & Recreation, 2013’s Sandra Bullock / Melissa McCarthy action comedy vehicle The Heat, and the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters). That’s a solid rèsumè to be sure… but surely you can see why fans’ initial reaction was horror… and not the Del Toro kind.
Does attaching Dippold as a writer suggest Disney might unthinkably go the “CGI family adventure comedy” route with the Haunted Mansion again? Maybe it’ll work this time. But frankly, it would be a relief to see Disney learn from their laundry list of mistakes in the genre and dare to do something eerie, ethereal, and legitimately creepy instead. Like the Mansion itself, any film that truly hopes to capture the artistry within will need to find a balance between Del Toro’s otherworldly horror and Dippold’s comedy and characterization. Like it or not, we may soon see…
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Do you agree with our countdown of the best-to-worst ride-to-film adaptations in Disney’s catalogue? Are we too harsh on the movies Disney has created? Would you rather see more movies based on rides, or rides based on movies? Use the comments below to share your thoughts!