The Sanderson Sisters are back! Hocus Pocus 2 is now streaming on Disney+, just in time for pumpkin spice season and repeat viewings in the lead-up to Halloween. Gizmodo recently participated in the press conference for the film with the cast and creative team to discuss the making of the movie and why it t00k 29 years to get here.
Original Hocus Pocus stars Bette Midler (Winifred Sanderson), Kathy Najimy (Mary Sanderson), and Doug Jones (Billy Butcherson), and new costars Whitney Peak (Becca), Belissa Escobedo (Izzy), and Lilia Buckingham (Cassie), joined director Anne Fletcher (The Proposal), executive producer Adam Shankman, and producer Lynn Harris to share the most magical facts about the film.
They Lit the Black Flame Candle
Thanks to whoever cast the summoning spell and lit the black candle flame, Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy were able to reunite as the Sanderson Sisters. In the era of legacy sequels, it makes so much sense — but in reality, it took 15 years to start the ball rolling. According to Midler, “This was kind of a dream come true, it really was. I mean, I’ve been — I don’t want to say agitating, but after I realised it was actually a phenomenon, I started asking people around my age ‘don’t you think they would be interested in a sequel?’ I do love a franchise.” Then she added, “I think I’m a little elderly for a franchise at this point. But I’ll take what I can get.”
So will we!
Cult Hits Have a Special Power
Najimy credits the cult success of Hocus Pocus on it becoming an annual Halloween viewing tradition passed down from the generation that grew up with it. “I think there was something in this film, I think, like Wizard of Oz, where the generation shows it to their kids and shows it to their kids and shows it to their kids,” she explained. “So it becomes part of the fabric of the history of the family.”
The Music Is Spellbinding
Director Fletcher on her mission being the story and honouring the first film: “[I’m] making sure that I’m honouring these characters for the fans and bringing it into a new generation. The musical numbers are there for story. As I like to say, I didn’t feel like I could compete with [the first movie’s version of] ‘I Put a Spell on You,’ which Bette and Marc Shaiman wrote. And I mean, there was an original song. [They] did the arrangement and the lyrics. Can’t compete with that, so I didn’t try. We stayed really focused on trying to stay more towards the story. And we just had so many fun options of songs to choose from. And that’s where we landed. And who doesn’t want to see Bette Midler sing?”
Zombies Never Die
“I was a zombie before zombies were cool, you know,” character actor Doug Jones quipped about returning to portray Billy Butcherson. “And I was not a brain-eating zombie. That’s a big difference. I just wanted to go back to sleep. That’s all I want. I don’t want to eat anything. I just want to be left alone, really,” he said of playing Winnie’s ill-fated lover in the first Hocus Pocus.
Billy Butcherson has become an iconic spooky figure just like the Sanderson Sisters, something Jones credits to the shared energy among the cast of the original film. “He kind of matches the energy and the floppiness and the fun and the overdone characters of the sisters. I was 32 when I played him the first time. I was 61 playing him the second time,” he reminisced, and elaborated that finding Billy again was easy. “When I looked at myself in the mirror, [I] thought, ‘Oh my gosh, two minutes have passed in the last 29 years.’ He came back right away, voice and everything. I don’t know how that happened. But it was kind of magical.”
Halloween Is the Best Holiday
Belissa Escobedo (who will star in DC’s Blue Beetle) is no stranger to spooky shenanigans, having previously been featured in American Horror Stories before taking on the role of Izzy. In fact she loves them. “I mean, Halloween is the best holiday. Aside from that, I just have always loved like spooky Halloween movies because I feel like it can be extremes on both ends. And then you also see campiness and how it can be fun,” she said about going into the silly supernatural hijinks of Hocus Pocus 2. “And I think it’s amazing that, you have one end of horror, and then you have this end of camp. And they all bridge together in the same genre and come collectively to celebrate this fun holiday.”
As Izzy, Escobedo co-leads as a young witch who sides with her friend on her 16th birthday when they’re ditched by Cassie for a boy (things get a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the bare bones of it). “I think I just admire that she just has this, like, blind loyalty to these girls, [and] will do anything for them, no questions asked — totally would go against three evil witches.”
In many ways her power in the group is similar to Mary Sanderson’s. Najimy jumped in to affirm what makes Izzy so special: “You also have a lot of self-assuredness too. It wasn’t like you were just a lackey. You were actually very focused.”
A Role for a Fan
“You know, as a fan of the movie itself, this was directed right at me. I’ve been a fan of the movie since it was in theatres,” admitted actor Sam Richardson (The Afterparty). “To get to be in the movie as a fan of the movie from growing up, and getting to watch these three [Hocus Pocus icons] and watching myself, it’s so many levels of inception. It’s very meta.” he said of getting to play Salem Magic Shop owner and Sanderson Sisters fanboy Gilbert.
Richardson even went as far as taking the movie role without meeting Fletcher — he loves Hocus Pocus that much. “My whole career was just a plan to get into the movie and I did. I saw the first movie in theatre. And my reaction was like, I’m gonna be in that,” he joked. But we have a hunch that may not have been kidding if you’ve seen Werewolves Within (if you haven’t, you must), which shares a horror comedy vibe but is way more violent.
Modern Friendships
Buckingham, who plays Cassie, also spiritually feels like an homage to Sarah Sanderson: she has great love for her sisters, or her best friends in this case, but it gets complicated when a guy catches her eye. Buckingham described the bond Cassie has with Becca and Izzy: “We have this love for each other and this friendship, but I mean, every teen knows what it’s like to kind of go through a rough patch with your friends. And to have your first boyfriend or girlfriend and then kind of figure it out. I think she is a very good example of misstepping and not being able to figure it out until she communicates with her best friends. And that’s just the realest thing I’ve ever heard. We’ve all been through that.”
A New Coven
Hocus Pocus 2 explores dueling covens who soon realise they’re more alike than they think. “I think there is an interesting parallel of the older witches, but also the three of us, [who come from] three completely different walks of life and personality and individuality,” Peak, who plays the modern coven leader-in-training, shared. “And then just kind of finding this bond where you can be selfless and completely comfortable with each other. Becca [has a strong] sense of valuing the people that she keeps around her. She has a core friend group and no matter what happens, she eventually gets to [make] sure that she has her sisters behind her the entire time.”
Sanderson Sisterhood
Midler echoed the sentiment of powerful bonds that she got to revisit with Parker and Najimy. “Well, we talked a lot about sisterhood. And we talked a lot about leaning on each other and counting on each other and loyalty to each other. There’s so much going on in this world that we never really realised until maybe the last 25, 30 years, maybe 50 years — things have changed for women, but things have not changed fast enough for women.”
According to its star, the film speaks to multiple generations of witches. “I think these three characters are, in a strange and odd way, really quite positive for women. First of all, they’re very funny, which women are not allowed to be — are not supposed to be. And they’re intensely loyal to each other. It’s a very broad range of emotions that they live through. I think in a funny way, their bond is very, very strong. So in any situation where women are together, a bond of friendship and sisterhood is really, really important. And then this movie sort of shores it up.”
Najimy piped in to back her sister up. “And there’s very little hesitation in our ideas and the things that we’re going to do. We don’t sit and we’re like, ‘this is what we have to get done,” she said, before joking, “We’re gonna get it done, even if it’s eat children. Whatever it is that our mission is, there’s not a lot of second-guessing which I don’t think you see a lot.”
Midler added, “No second guessing. So we’re very decisive. We’re a very decisive group which goes also goes to show that women can be decisive.”
Spooky Costume Design
Fletcher on recreating the look of the original film down to the iconic costumes, which unfortunately didn’t make it back to this production: “Some of [the clothes] deteriorated. They are in a museum in Seattle, Washington but they’re in terrible shape. So we had to start from scratch. And I thought really way outside of the bubble — like you know how all these big superhero movies change everything up. At the end of the day, Lynn and I had these conversations with [costume designer] Sal Pérez Jr about just staying true to what their witches’ clothes were, [and] give it new material. The symbols on all three of the witches outfits, especially Bette’s, mean something. It’s sort of now modern-day Wicca. But in the 1600s, that version of witchcraft which was tethered to the earth, the ocean, the stars, it’s all tied together. It’s all reflected in Winifred’s cloak.”
Really, It Was All Destined
Executive producer Adam Shankman shared his personal connetction to the first film. “I was actually privileged enough in a very weird way to come and visit the set of the original Hocus Pocus. I remember my first day there was one of the flying scenes outside the cottage. It was incredibly magical at the time,” he said. He recalled how that experience, where he made friends with the cast and creative team, got him to say “yes” to the sequel. “A lot of it had to do with ‘Can I just please do something with my friends?’ And because you make new friends in every project that you do, hopefully. This time, this period of our lives has been incredibly isolating. And I hadn’t gotten to see people I know and love in a really long time. And so to be able to have the opportunity to be forced together [laughes] was really, really special to me.”
Hocus Pocus 2 is now streaming on Disney+.
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