When Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean became a behemoth franchise, folks braced themselves for a flurry of theme park ride adaptations from the Mouse House. While a number were in development, from Jon Favreau’s Magic Kingdom to Guillermo del Toro’s Haunted Mansion, we’ve yet to see any kind of overkill from the studio in terms of theme park movies. However, they’re throwing one more into the development mix, although it’s a theme park ride that they’ve actually previously turned into a film: Tower of Terror.

Per Deadline, Big Fish writer John August has turned in a treatment for a Tower of Terror movie that Disney is now ready to assign to a screenwriter in the hopes of bringing the film to fruition. August and producer Jim Whitaker’s came up with a take on the ride's central premise, which revolves around five people in a posh hotel who take an elevator and then disappear after it’s struck by lightning.


So we’ve got ourselves a good old-fashioned haunted hotel movie in the works. The Tower of Terror ride is full of atmosphere and history, so hopefully some of that “old world Hollywood” aesthetic can creep its way into this new film. Or maybe it's something totally different. Beyond the simple logline we don’t know anything more about the plans for the film, but it’s clearly still in the very early stages of development so it has a ways to go.

As I said before, Disney previously turned the attraction into a feature film in 1997—albeit a made-for-TV movie that aired on Disney Channel and starred Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst. The premise of that film was similar and found modern day Guttenberg and Dunst working to free the ghosts of 1930s Hollywood folks trapped in the hotel. Watch the trailer below, if you dare.

disney-tower-of-terror