When spooky season rolls around each October, Hocus Pocus has long been one of the great fun Halloween movies for families to watch. In 2022, Disney offered audiences with a blast of an annual double feature for the holiday season with Hocus Pocus 2. Now Bette Midler just spoke about the potential of Hocus Pocus 3 giving the Sanderson sisters a trilogy!
Hocus Pocus 2 hit Disney+ during the 2022 fall season and broke a major record for the total number of minutes watched by a streaming film across its debut weekend (2.73 billion), per Deadline. The massive appeal of the movie had us wondering why Disney didn’t send it to theaters. So it didn’t come as a surprise when word came that Hocus Pocus 3 had begun development last summer. When Midler just spoke about Hocus Pocus, here’s what she shared:
Now, they're kind of talking about a third, very gingerly and very gently. They are. They're talking about a third. The second one was a huge success.
While it's not news to us that another Hocus Pocus 3 is happening, it sounds like it’s not a done deal! While speaking to SiriusXM, Midler shared that Disney is “gingerly” and “gently” talking about another movie since the sequel was so huge. Jen D’Angelo, who wrote the second film, is reportedly working on the next script, with the sequel’s director, Anne Fletcher, also attached. It should be noted, though, that last year’s WGA writer’s strike likely delayed things.
Her words came after she was asked about if she knew the original 1993 movie would take off as much as it has. As she continued:
It took off because of television, and we really didn't catch up to it for years. It was years before we learned that this was this massive cult success.
Midler also said that it was a “real surprise” to see how successful Hocus Pocus became because the movie didn’t take off right away. Hocus Pocus actually bombed at the box office, though oddly enough, Disney decided to release it in July (apparently to cater to kids who were off from school). The movie came out the same summer as Jurassic Park, which obviously dominated! Midler also said this about her beloved character:
I have to say in the shooting, Winnie, another great one. Winnie is so outside me, she's probably the least like me of any character I've ever played. Every ham, every comic, wants to play Leer, everybody wants to Shakespeare, and I of course I want to play Shakespeare too, but the ship has sailed. She is the closest thing I will ever get to Shakespeare. She's from the era, she's from the time around Shakespeare. She really does put it on, and yet she has all the great things you love in a great villain. She's vicious, she's hilarious, she's ridiculous-looking, and she doesn't know any of that. It goes completely over her head.
As Midler shares, Winifred is such a fun character for her to play, even if she is the least like her. Over the past 30 years, Winifred and the rest of the Sanderson sisters, played by Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, have become such popular characters that they are regularly tributed during Halloween. While we wait for their next movie, you can stream both Hocus Pocus movies right now with a Disney+ subscription.
