Lesser-known facts about the Halloween film Hocus Pocus 2

After 29 years since the wicked Sanderson sisters were defeated, Disney returns with a sequel to the Halloween classic Hocus Pocus. The original cast members Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy return as Winifred "Winnie" Sanderson, Sarah Sanderson, and Mary Sanderson, respectively, for the sequel, Hocus Pocus 2. Now, let’s dive into some facts and trivia about the film.

1. Actress Bette Midler was instrumental in the making of Hocus Pocus 2. After she realized the original was immensely popular on social media, she contacted the studio about the prospects of a sequel.
2. Sarah Jessica Parker, popular for essaying the role of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City, plays the youngest airhead witch with the power of a hypnotic siren call. While researching for a movie, she shockingly discovered that her great-grandmother, Esther Elwell was arrested in Salem in the late 1600s for allegedly performing witchcraft and later hanged at the infamous Salem Witch Trials.
3. Doug Jones, popular for playing characters that require heavy prosthetics, such as his characters in Shape of Water and Pan’s Labyrinth, plays the role of Billy Butcherson in the Hocus Pocus franchise. Butcherson is a former love interest of Winfred Sanderson, and the actor recently revealed that the wig he wore for the new film is the same one as the one that was used in the original.
4. Hocus Pocus was mostly filmed in Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, with a few scenes also being filmed in Hollywood, California. Whereas the new movie is mostly shot in big cities such as Lincoln, Newport, Astoria, Queens and New York.
5. Before the sequel was sanctioned, there were talks of a television remake of the original movie produced by Freefrom without the involvement of the original cast. However, once Hocus Pocus 2 was announced, the project was scrapped.
6. In 2020, the original cast got together for a virtual reunion for the benefit of the New York Restoration Project. They were joined by several special guests like Elvira, Jamie Lee Curtis, Meryl Streep, John Stamos, Glenn Close, Billy Crystal, and Adam Lambert.

You can watch this film on Disney+ Hotstar.

Well that's the OTTplay Now You Know for today, until the next time it's your host Nikhil signing out.

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• Written by Sneha Singh