Last week, we were all somewhat surprised to see a trailer for the movie The Witches. The last we'd heard, that project had been pushed into an unspecified release date in 2021, more than likely around next Halloween given the subject matter. However, it's now been revealed that the film will instead make the jump to HBO Max this year, and star Anne Hathaway has the perfect response.
Anne Hathaway posted the brand new trailer to her Instagram account and while she filled her post with all the appropriate hashtags and tagged both the HBO Max streaming service and her co-star, Octavia Spencer, she only included a single word in the body of the post from herself...
Boo.
Really, what else is there that needs to be said? It's October which means that if you're one of the people that like to celebrate Halloween all month long, (or longer if you can get away with it) you're likely very ready for anything that has an element of the season in it, and so both this trailer and this post are going to be right up your alley.
The decision to release The Witches on HBO Max will certainly be a big deal for anybody who was looking forward to this film or just anybody looking for new movies to enjoy this Halloween. The Witches now joins a collection of films that have skipped theaters, because they've largely been unavailable, to make a streaming service debut instead. HBO Max has had a solid launch this year, and some high profile movie releases certainly, however unplanned they had been, have likely helped in a big way.
And The Witches, being based on a Roald Dahl story, is probably going to be a popular choice on HBO Max because it's designed to be fun, and scary, for the whole family. As with most Dahl stories, it is equal parts bright and cheerful and dark and creepy. And the new trailer appears to have captured that. Check it out below.
The Witches has a lot to live up to. The original Roald Dahl story is as popular as anything else from the author. The story was also adapted into a film in the '90s which gave a generation of kids nightmares, and probably also turned a lot of them into horror movie fans. The remake is going to have to be quite good to win over fans of the previous film. Certainly, the hope is that the movie will be a nostalgia trip for them, as well as become a staple Halloween film for a new generation of young viewers.
The Witches will arrive on HBO Max on October 22, just in time to get people in the Halloween mood. Of course, considering the state of things, watching movies at home might be the best available option for celebrating Halloween at all.
