A few months back, Guillermo del Toro raised eyebrows when he announced at Comic-Con that he would be making a new Haunted Mansion movie, one that would be scarier. This thrilled me, because while in retrospect the 2003 version of The Haunted Mansion did capture many facets of the ride (the silly, the funny, the scary), there was always something about it that felt jumbled, didn’t have that singular atmosphere that, say, Pirates of the Caribbean did.
So today I was hunting about for some information and I came across this article, which is a treasure trove of speculation about future Disney ride-related movies. Jungle Cruise? Tomorrowland? David Fincher-led 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? My head is spinning.
Now I want your ideas for movies based on Disney rides, past and present. It can be an honest pitch, or something silly. Here’s a few I’ve come up with:
ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter
This ride always felt like it was based on a movie anyway; why not run with it? A greedy corporation dealing in technology that hasn’t quite gotten all the kinks out makes a fatal mistake. Now only Ripley can… wait, scratch that last bit. Reprising their original roles are Kathy Najimy, Jeffrey Jones, Tim Curry and Tyra Banks (yeah, that was Tim Curry and Tyra Banks, don’t you remember?).
Carousel of Progress
A family moves into a turn-of-the-century farmhouse, only to find themselves trapped in a kind of hellish portal through time. Seemingly without schedule they wake up in any given decade, and are forced by a disembodied “Master” to play out their dollhouse lives without anachronism. After a while, however, they are horrified to discover that they continue to age…
It’s a Small World
Due to unspecified events, the planet is no longer useable. Mankind’s only hope for survival is a ship populated with a selection of the world’s people – and they’re all children. A coming-of-age tale, these children build a new society, form political factions, and fall in love – unable to grasp the hopeless odds of finding a New Earth.
So how about you? What rides would you like to see made into movies, or re-imagined into new ones?
Personally, I’d really love to see a movie based on Splash Mountain, to re-introduce the Br’er characters to the screen. Since Disney is not going to release Song of the South in the foreseeable future, the characters are languishing.
I would think Big Thunder Mountain Railroad would be obvious.
I want to see a new Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer movie done by Disney. Tying in Tom Sawyer’s Island and the paddle-wheel boat would be awesome.
No love for the Enchanted Tiki Room? Unfortunately, the obvious script would just result in a sappy “family” movie. A family that recently lost one of the parents (because Disney only believes in broken homes) moves to a tropical island to get a fresh start. They had bought an old 60′s-era resort, that had been nearly demolished in a storm and left to rot. But, of course, there’s magic in the place. The birds, flowers, and tiki gods must come together to protect the family from Generic Evil Businessmen.
Can Hall of Presidents spawn a movie? Seems a bit hard. Unless it’s all about a robot army of dead Presidents programmed to fight crime/slay vampires/stop the zombie apocalypse. Otherwise, it pretty much is just the obvious locale for the hero of the Magic Kingdom movie to find his true purpose and dive back into the fray.
Can you make a horror movie out of the Skyway?
Most of Fantasyland is already tied to various movies. Except Small World, which was previously mentioned, and Philharmagic, which is a movie.
What else is out there? Can you turn the Electric Light Parade into a movie? What about the railroad?
The Teacups.