Disney+ releases ‘Hocus Pocus 2′ starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy
A sequel to the 1993 film that no one asked for has been released on Disney’s streaming platform featuring the main three cast members on board.
Many Disney fans are awaiting the release of Hocus Pocus 2, the sequel to the Halloween movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, and Bette Midler. Hocus Pocus 2 will be available for those with Disney+ on 30 September.
The original film features Midler, Jessica Parker and Najimy as three witches from the Salem witch trials who are resurrected in 1993. Ominously, the end of the film teases their return with the reawakening of the witches’ spellbook. Now, nearly 30 years later, audiences can find out what happens next.
The trailer shows the three witches back in 2022, returning to Salem for revenge.
“The fact that we got to do this finally, after 30 years of promoting the idea, I’m glad we got to do it,” Midler told Entertainment Weekly, “I’d love to have a franchise — especially a character I love playing. If there was a third one, of course I’d sign on, but I don’t know how.”
That the film is being released solely on streaming perhaps shows Disney’s lack of faith that the film would make enough money in cinemas to be worthwhile. Rotten Tomatoes, film score aggregate site has the film at a 67 percent positive rating. The critic consensus says,“Hocus Pocus 2 is basically a boiling cauldron of nostalgia, but that’s more than enough for this belated sequel to cast a reasonably effective spell.”
With so many sequels released nowadays (data suggests that 80 percent of the top 25 films of 2019 were sequels, while in 1981 this number was just 16 percent) it should come as no surprise that this film has been produced and is “basically... nostalgia”.