At the premiere of Disney’s Haunted Mansion, theme park characters were substituted for the film’s actors, for the first time on the red carpet since the SAG-AFTRA strike.
As Variety reported, the world premiere of Haunted Mansion was starless, so a cast of Disney characters walked the red carpet instead.
The fictional character Cruella de Vil has arrived #HauntedMansion Premiered at Disneyland. https://t.co/ozgw9lMm8J pic.twitter.com/kKnSzCsH1j
– Variety (@Variety) July 16, 2023
“It’s so sad and disappointing,” said director Justin Simien. “But I’m not disappointed with this cast. I’m disappointed in the circumstances that led to this situation and you see… her work speaks for itself in this film, but I really wanted to speak for her as well.”
Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, guild members are prohibited from conducting promotional activities for their work, including red carpet premieres. That means Haunted Mansion stars LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Chase W. Dillon, Daniel Levy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hasan Minhaj, Marilu Henner and Lindsay Lamb weren’t expected. However, Disney decided to roll out the red carpet anyway. It is believed that Disney would have lost revenue from corporate sponsors if the world premiere had not taken place.
Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse have arrived #HauntedMansion Premiered at Disneyland — the first major carpet held since Thursday’s SAG-AFTRA voted for a strike. https://t.co/ozgw9lMm8J pic.twitter.com/tMkYTHFIZE
– Variety (@Variety) July 16, 2023
The two-hour red carpet event marked the first major studio premiere since the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 13 and offers an immersive look at what we can expect in the coming months. There are no cast interviews, no photo ops, just a sad lineup of costumed characters instead of the usual Hollywood glitz and glamour.
It remains to be seen how other studios will approach their upcoming world premieres. After all, most other studios don’t have a hundred years of animation heritage to draw from when it comes to replacing their actors for these events.
The rather sad-looking premiere comes just days after Disney CEO Bob Iger called the SAG-AFTRA and WGA writers’ strike “unrealistic” expectations.
“It worries me a lot,” he said of the strikes. “We have spoken about disruptive forces in this business and all the challenges we are facing and the ongoing recovery from COVID which is not quite back yet. This is the worst time on earth for this disruption to increase.”
“I understand the desire of any labor organization to work on behalf of their members in order to receive the highest possible compensation and receive fair compensation based on the value they provide,” he added. “As an industry we have been able to negotiate a very good deal with the Directors Guild that reflects the value the Directors bring to this great company. We wanted to do the same with the writers and we want to do the same with the actors. You have a certain level of expectations that just aren’t realistic. And they add to the challenges that this company is already facing, which, frankly, are very disruptive.”
The Haunted Mansion director responded that he’d like to speak to Bob Iger about his comments.
“I’d really like to sit down and talk to him,” he told Variety. “I don’t know if it made me feel the way he meant it… I’d like to talk to him about it.”
“Let me tell you about ‘unrealistic,'” he added. “It’s unrealistic that I’m a filmmaker. Coming from Houston, Texas, gay, black, that’s unrealistic. And what made me think I could do that and so many other things was seeing these movies with these beautiful protagonists who could chase these unrealistic dreams and seeing the journey they took to get there.
“So many artists believe in this dream and contribute to these films. I would love to speak to him about the reality we all face as artists to make the impossible possible every day.”
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can keep following him Twitter.