Hocus Pocus 2 director Anne Fletcher chats to us about making the legacy sequel, doing the original justice and introducing new characters.
When chatting, Hocus Pocus 2, director Anne Fletcher readily admits that making a legacy sequel 29 years after the 1993 film is a daunting task. Especially considering it’s become something of a cult classic, beloved by the fans – whose opinion Fletcher holds in high regard. “I have to sit in the fans’ seat, right?” She says of the angle she approached Hocus Pocus 2 from. “Because they love this movie. This is why Disney said ‘yes, let’s do the sequel.”
“You have to look at the first movie, in making the second movie, through the eyes of the fans, and you have to love it as much as they do, because you want them to love it, and you want them to be so happy they finally got what they wanted all these years.”
The film fell into Fletcher’s lap quite by chance, when Adam Shankman (who remains on the project as executive producer) was forced to choose between directing two sequels – this and Disenchanted – the follow-up to 2007’s Enchanted, which is also premiering on Disney+ later this year. Being close friends, Fletcher had already heard much about the work he was doing on Hocus Pocus 2. “So he, and our producer Lynn Harris and my agent all rallied behind me and said ‘we should offer this to Anne,’” she explains. “It felt like I was kind of preparing for the movie anyway!”
Making a legacy sequel
Hocus Pocus 2 focuses on teenage protagonists Becca (Whitney Peak), Izzy (Belissa Escobedo) and Cassie (Lilia Buckingham). Halloween 2022 is Becca’s 16th birthday, which just so happens to be the day witches are rumoured to gain their powers. During their celebrations they accidentally bring the Sanderson sisters back from the dead. Naturally, Winifred (Bette Midler), Mary (Kathy Najimy) and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) wreak havoc on Salem once more.
Fletcher clearly understands how important the 1993 movie is to the fans. As such, the sequel comes across as a homage to the original – drawing inspiration from its narrative beats and memorable scenes. It feels as though the crew behind the film were also Hocus Pocus enthusiasts, so I ask Fletcher if she’s a fan. “How can you not be?” she enthusiastically exclaims.
The director cites the improvisation skills of Midler, Najimy and Parker as the source of Hocus Pocus’ magic (pun intended). “To have that ability to improvise three very distinct characters, as sisters, and to be able to improvise the way they do is so magical,” she explains. “To watch that and appreciate that is magnificent, and then I get to be a part of a small piece of it in the sequel, so that I loved.”
She tells of not only wanting to get the sequel right for the fans, but also for the leading trio who play the Sandersons.
Midler, Najimy and Parker are easily as enthusiastic about their characters as the people in the audience who love to watch them – Midler especially. “It was incredibly important to Bette,” Fletcher says. “Which made it again that much more important to me because I wanted her to be happy. She cares deeply about this movie, as do the other witches, but her and I just had many conversations about it. She loves Winnie. She’ll tell you herself it’s her favourite character she created!” She adds.
New characters and ideas
Protagonists Becca, Izzy and Cassie are another trio of female characters seen in the film, and it turns out they were designed to parallel the Sanderson sisters. “There was something I think in the back of our minds of really shaping the three girls to sort of fall in line with our witches,” Fletcher explains. “If you pay close attention we have them in clothes that are sort of in the same colour scheme. Cassie is sort of Sarah, Becca is sort of Winnie, and Izzy is a little bit of Mary.”
Although the Sandersons are evil witches in the film, Fletcher says that she wanted to incorporate modern witchcraft and Winifred’s origins in order to touch on the reality of what went on in Salem during the 1600s. “The story matter is really about three witches from the Salem witch trials – and they just happen to be witches,” she laughs. “I laugh because there weren’t witches in the 1600s, there were just women with opinions. So they were unfortunately and ridiculously burned for that.” We see a little bit of that in Hocus Pocus 2 during a prologue with young Winifred, which allows her to move beyond the caricature of an evil, child-eating witch.
When we get down to discussing the shoot itself, Fletcher finds herself unable to remember many details. I ask what her favourite scene to film was, and she goes quiet. She remembers few details, just that she was laughing all the time. “All I remember right now is just sometimes laughing so hard [you’d be] falling over the chair. Just something that the witches would just throw out there randomly that you just can’t stop laughing at.” Clearly, it was again the leading trio’s improvisation skills that made this a memorable production.
Just as the fans have a lot of love for the 1993 film, so does Fletcher for her sequel. “There’s so much I love, and the reason I love it is because I love the actors so much, my entire cast.” That love is evident in the finished film, and that’s part of what makes it such a joyous sequel that’s in keeping with the spirit of its predecessor. Anne Fletcher set out to please Hocus Pocus fans with her film, and in this fan’s opinion she’s succeeded.
Hocus Pocus 2 is streaming now on Disney+.
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