Captain America steps aside for Haunted Mansion premiere

July 11, 2023, 3:00 PM · Rogers: The Musical will go dark this weekend at Disneyland, as the resort prepares for the world premiere of Disney's new "Haunted Mansion" movie.

The premiere will happen 5pm Saturday at the Hyperion Theater in Disney California Adventure, which this summer is home to Rogers: The Musical. The 35-minute, live Marvel-themed musical premiered June 30 and runs through August 31. Here's our review, including a full show video: 'Rogers: The Musical' delivers a winner for Disneyland.

The Disneyland Resort is not listing any showtimes for Rogers: The Musical on Thursday through next Tuesday. (The show is dark on Sundays and Mondays.) Presumably, Disney is taking a couple days to prepare the theater for the "Haunted Mansion" premiere on Saturday. However, the premiere event might not include everything that Disney had planned.

The Hollywood actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, is expected to go on strike at midnight on Thursday, joining the Writers Guild, which has been on strike against Hollywood studios since May. If the actors strike, that does not just mean no more movie and television production (not that much has been happening, due to the writers' picket lines). A strike also means no more promotional work by actors, either, including appearances on red carpets and news interviews.

So do not expect to see "Haunted Mansion" stars, such as Jamie Lee Curtis, Rosario Dawson, LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Hasan Minhaj, Owen Wilson, Jared Leto, or Danny DeVito at the parks on Saturday for the premiere if the actors strike. Disneyland will go ahead with the premiere, Variety is reporting, but it no longer will be a star-studded affair.

However, without actors - and the photographers and reporters they would attract - in the parks on Saturday, that might make things easier for park guests, who might have more access than they would have had if the event had gone on as planned. (Don't count on getting in to see the movie, either way, though. Update: Unless you are a Disneyland Resort cast member. The resort says that there will a "Cast Life" early screening opportunity in the Hyperion Theater this weekend.)

Disney's "Haunted Mansion" comes to theaters on July 28.

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Replies (21)

July 11, 2023 at 3:21 PM

Rogers: The Musical is a 350-minute musical? That's almost twice as long as Endgame!

July 11, 2023 at 4:41 PM

Man, there is ZERO advertising presence for the Haunted Mansion movie, I haven't seen a promo or trailer in months.

July 11, 2023 at 5:07 PM

Fixed the typo. Then cleaned keyboard. Gotta stop working over lunch.

July 11, 2023 at 5:28 PM

It supposedly will turn in a "Fan Event" if the strike occurs.

July 11, 2023 at 5:33 PM

They'll go ahead and put up the red carpet backdrops then just call 'em photo ops.

July 11, 2023 at 11:31 PM

Oddly, have seen plenty of ads for Haunted Mansion on TV.

July 12, 2023 at 4:57 AM

Yesterday was the first time I saw an add for it on Instagram. And I'm a frequent moviegoer.

July 12, 2023 at 8:46 AM

There have been plenty of ads for the movie across broadcast, cable, and streaming networks (saw one yesterday on Peacock, of all places, during Tour de France coverage). It's certainly not as much of a blitz as there was for Indy, but Disney is definitely putting some heft behind the film and still has another 2 weeks to build momentum. However, even if the movie is good, it's going to run into an absolute buzzsaw in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, which for me was one of the best action movies I've EVER seen (we saw a preview screening of the Tom Cruise blockbuster last week).

Nonetheless, this seems like a really strange move since Disney typically stages its world premiers in the El Capitan in Hollywood. I could see wanting to do an event associated with this movie in Disneyland, but screening the film in DCA just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

July 12, 2023 at 10:08 AM

Saw the trailer when we went to see Indiana Jones but nothing on TV or anywhere else in my area. (Edmonton Alberta).

July 12, 2023 at 10:10 AM

If I were to guess, I think there trying to save money on advertising due to quite a few big movies costing a fortune and barely making their money back lately.

July 12, 2023 at 11:03 AM

I gotten the trailer for this film for every family up to PG-13 film I’ve seen for the past 6 months. The ads are playing like crazy on TV and I’ve seen bus signs, billboards all around the LA and Orange counties. Maybe the colonel doesn’t go to movies, watch TV, or goes outside their home.

July 12, 2023 at 12:47 PM

Francis, which big movies barely made their money back lately?

July 12, 2023 at 12:58 PM

@AgustinMacias Maybe I've been spending so much time making sweet love to your mother I haven't had much chance to watch TV.

You wanna talk trash, let's talk trash!

July 12, 2023 at 1:51 PM

The next Six Flags earnings report ain’t out until next month, so let’s save the talking about trash until then, please.

July 12, 2023 at 3:07 PM

hahahah

July 12, 2023 at 3:34 PM

@thecolonel:

In the head canon version of this thread I imagine you as a Michael Keaton Bruce Wayne lol

“You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts!”

Which by the way is a tip of the cap to your escalation skills

July 12, 2023 at 3:53 PM

@Keith
https://thedirect.com/article/disney-box-office-flops-animated-movies

July 12, 2023 at 4:33 PM

Francis, that’s not breaking even, that’s losing hundreds of millions of dollars.

July 12, 2023 at 7:16 PM

Disney will (or should) scale back on the their budgets going forward. They're still leading the global box office this year. They're at #1 with 3.4 billion, followed by Universal in the second spot at 2.89 billion ...but those massive budgets will cost them.

Haunted Mansion "may" be a modest success, but it is entering in a crowded market, there's major releases the week after (Ninja Turtles & Meg 2) as well following Barbie, Mission & Oppenheimer. And besides Pirates, the films based on attractions hasn't totally set the box office ablaze.

Its counter programming, but it might've been better to release this during the fall as a family friendly frightful October option. Its going be really tough to break out of the pack in July.

October would have been better.

July 12, 2023 at 9:47 PM

My guess why it wasn’t released in October: The original Haunted Mansion has the dreaded Holiday overlay. Its current release date will have the Mansion opened for 2 weeks before it closes.

July 13, 2023 at 12:28 PM

@ Augustin - That is a possibility, although for box office purposes, it seems like it would've been worth the risk. It just seems like the movie may get squeezed out with this July release.

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