Danny DeVito Joins LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson in ‘Haunted Mansion’ (Exclusive)

Danny DeVito has joined the luminous cast of Haunted Mansion, Disney’s ghostly family adventure based on one of the company’s signature theme park rides.

DeVito, whose last big-screen studio appearance was in 2019’s Jumanji: The Next Level, boards a project that already has LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson and Rosario Dawson on the call sheet.

Justin Simien, who previously helmed Dear White People and Bad Hair, is making his big-budget studio debut on Mansion, which began production last week in New Orleans and Atlanta.

The details of the story and script by Katie Dippold are being kept deep in the bayou. The film follows a mother and her son who come across a mansion that is more than it seems and meet various eccentric characters key to unlocking the spooky mystery.

DeVito will play a smug professor.

Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich, who produced Disney’s billion-dollar-grossing live-action remake of Aladdin, are producing via their Rideback banner. Rideback’s Nick Reynolds is executive producing.

DeVito is a veteran comedic actor whose more than 100 credits range from seminal 1970s TV series Taxi to major movies such as Romancing the Stone and Batman Returns, and appearing, for over the last 15 years, in long-running comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

He is due to reteam with helmer Ivan Reitman and star Arnold Schwarzenegger for Triplets, a sequel to 1988 comedy hit, Twins. The decades-long-gestating project, which has yet to land a distributor, is gearing up for a winter production start, with Tracy Morgan added to the mix.

DeVito is repped by CAA.