Almost 30 years after the original’s release, Hocus Pocus 2 finally arrives on Disney Plus this week – with the Sanderson sisters set to unleash havoc on Salem once again.
Kathy Najimy, Sarah Jessica Parker and Bette Midler are all back in their iconic roles as witches Mary, Sarah, and Winifred respectively, and according to the latter, she’d been pushing for a sequel for quite some time.
Speaking to RadioTimes.com and other media at a global press conference ahead of the film’s release, Midler was asked if she ever thought a sequel would actually materialise, and she confessed she wasn’t always so sure.
“I didn’t until the day finally came,” she responded. “And then I realised ‘Oh, we’re really gonna do this!’ It was kind of a dream come true, it really was.
“I mean, I’ve been – I don’t want to say agitating – but kind of like, after I realised it was actually a phenomenon, I started asking people around, my agent and people like that: ‘Don’t you think they would be interested in a sequel?’
“And this was a long time ago. This was like 15 years ago, something like that. So here we are.”
She added: “I do love a franchise, even though I’m a little elderly for a franchise at this point!”
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Najimy was then quizzed about why she thought the original had continued to resonate with audiences so long after its release, joking: “Other than my performance?”
She said: “I don’t think that anyone could ever decide that ahead of time, or else everybody would make that kind of movie. I think you just make films and you go on to the next one, and however the audience receives it is always a surprise.
“So I think there was something in this film [that was] Wizard of Oz-ish, where the generation shows it to their kids, who shows it to their kids, who shows it to their kids.
“So it becomes this part of the fabric of the history of the family. So I don’t think that anyone can ever predict!”
Hocus Pocus 2 comes to Disney Plus on Friday 30th September 2022. You can sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year now.
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