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Why The World Never Got To See Hocus Pocus 2

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For 25 years, Disney has sat on one of its most bankable Halloween properties without ever pulling the trigger on a sequel.

“Hocus Pocus” bombed when it hit theaters in July 1993, undercut by summer competition from “Free Willy” and a release date that missed Halloween by three months entirely. Yet the Sanderson sisters clawed their way into cult-classic status through relentless October reruns, and by the mid-2010s fans were openly campaigning for a follow-up. Disney, for its part, has spent years dropping hints, floating concepts, and then quietly letting them die.

• Bette Midler told fans in a November 2015 Facebook Q&A she could give an “unequivocal no” on a sequel movie, a sharp reversal from her enthusiasm during a November 2014 Reddit AMA.
• Doug Jones, who played Billy Butcherson, said in 2016 and again in early 2018 that talks had circled a story set 20 years after the original — talks that never turned into a greenlight.
• In September 2017, reports surfaced that Disney Channel was developing a TV remake with an all-new cast and writer Scarlett Lacey, an idea Midler publicly called “cheap” while confirming she wouldn’t be involved.

A Box Office Flop That Became a Halloween Institution

Kenny Ortega’s “Hocus Pocus” opened to a shrug in the summer of 1993, a strange release window for a film literally about Halloween witches. It got buried by “Free Willy” and largely disappeared from theaters within weeks. What saved it was television — Disney Channel and later Freeform turned it into an annual October ritual, and a generation of kids who never saw it in theaters grew up quoting Winifred Sanderson’s every line.

The Cast Says Yes, But the Decision Sits With Disney

Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy have all said, at various points, that they’d happily suit back up as Winifred, Sarah, and Mary. Midler was explicit about it during her November 2014 Reddit AMA, framing the trio as ready and willing performers waiting on a studio memo that never came. That patience wore thin fast.

By late 2015, Midler wasn’t hedging anymore — asked directly about a movie sequel, she told fans flatly she could give an “unequivocal no.”

The Recast Rumor That Went Nowhere

Rather than bring the original trio back, Disney Channel reportedly explored a television remake in September 2017 built around a brand-new cast, with writer Scarlett Lacey attached to the project. Midler shut the idea down publicly, dismissing the recasting concept as “cheap” and making clear she had no interest in watching someone else play Winifred. Doug Jones’s separate comments about a 20-years-later storyline, floated in 2016 and repeated in early 2018, suggest Disney kept kicking around ideas internally without ever committing a budget or a start date to any of them.

Books and Reunions Instead of a Movie

What Disney actually delivered wasn’t a film — it was a young adult novel. “Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel” hit shelves in July 2018, centering on the teenage daughter of original characters Max and Allison rather than the Sanderson sisters themselves. That October, Freeform hosted a 25th-anniversary Halloween reunion special, giving fans a nostalgia hit without a single new frame of the sisters actually being filmed. As of early 2019, Disney still hadn’t made any official announcement or production commitment toward a live-action “Hocus Pocus 2.”

So the sequel remains exactly what it’s been since 1993: a project everyone involved says they want, and nobody at Disney has actually funded. Midler, Parker, and Najimy are still available. The book’s already out. The reunion special already aired. All that’s missing is the one thing that actually matters — a greenlight.