Tower of Terror theme park ride is being turned into a movie (again)

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

At Disney's Hollywood Studios there stands a drop tower dark ride called Tower of Terror, an attraction inspired by The Twilight Zone and is hosted by a Rod Serling sound-alike. Riders enter a building made to look like a long abandoned, partially burnt out hotel and are delivered a back story about a strange occurrence on the night of Halloween 1939: the building was struck by lightning and five people aboard an elevator vanished into another dimension. The ride is set on a dark and stormy night, just like Halloween '39, and riders step onto the elevator to experience a bit of what those long-lost occupants went through.

There are Towers of Terror at three other Disney parks around the world, all but one retaining the back story and Twilight Zone connection.

The Tower of Terror served as the inspiration for a 1997 TV movie starring Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst, and now Disney is gearing up to produce a second film adaptation of the ride.

Frequent Tim Burton collaborator John August and producer Jim Whitaker are behind this new take on TOWER OF TERROR. August has written a treatment and the search is now on for another writer to flesh it out into a screenplay.

The 1997 TV movie dropped the Twilight Zone element, and this new film will also be distancing itself from the Serling anthology series.

The Tower of Terror itself may just be a ride up and down an elevator shaft with some creepy visuals thrown in, but there is an interesting haunted hotel story at its foundation that could make for an entertaining movie if it's brought to the screen in the right way.

Kirsten Dunst