Justin Simien is frustrated that Haunted Mansion was released in the shadow of Barbie and Oppenheimer.
The 40-year-old filmmaker helmed the Disney picture that came out just a week after the two blockbusters and thinks the scheduling contributed to the picture’s disappointing box-office performance.
“I think the release date was really tough – I saw ‘Barbie’ coming from miles away. I was disappointed by some aspects of our release, but I was not really surprised,” Simien told The Wrap.
“There’s a lot of folks in the industry that just kept saying, ‘I don’t know’ and ‘That’ll probably not be as big as it sounds like.’ And I was like, ‘(Barbie) is going to be huge.’ What ‘Oppenheimer’ did so well – the marketing for ‘Oppenheimer’ embraced the fact that ‘Barbie’ was coming with this gigantic, cultural juggernaut. I don’t know that our campaign necessarily embraced or acknowledged that we were essentially coming out in the shadow of what was clearly such a box office phenomenon,” he said.
The SAG-AFTRA strike also started shortly before the movie was released, meaning that cast members, including Tiffany Haddish and LaKeith Stanfield were unable to promote the project.
“There was a lot of stuff going on with the strike… a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with the movie that I think really got in the way, and that was frustrating to see because I came up in publicity. If you had asked me and sat down with me … I would have seen some of these things coming. I’ll put it that way,” he said.
Simien also claimed that audiences felt a Halloween release would have been more appropriate than a summer launch.
“I certainly have heard the feeling from a lot of folks, and I can’t say I disagree. This is a much better time [October] to receive a movie like this,” the “Dear White People” star said.
