Hocus Pocus 2 dropped on Disney+ this weekend, and all of us ghouls and goblins rejoiced!
The new film reunited us with our favorite trio of spooky siblings, the Sanderson sisters (Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker).
And introduced us to some fresh faces as well.
But while the movie does bring back the aforementioned trio and Doug Jones as everybody's favorite zombie, Billy Butcherson, the rest of the cast from the original Hocus Pocus are sadly absent from the story.
But it wasn't supposed to be that way!
The film's director, Anne Fletcher, explained to Entertainment Weekly that they tried to fit in all of our old favorites, like Max (Omri Katz), Allison (Vinessa Shaw), Dani (Thora Birch), and of course the iconic bullies Jay and Ice (Tobias Jelinek and Larry Bagby).
"We wanted to weave in all of the people that the fans loved," Fletcher said, "and when you sat back with all the ingredients and story, you're like, 'how do we make this work?'"
In a recent interview with EW, the three young actors who play opposite the Sanderson Sisters (Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobedo, and Lilia Buckingham), talked about an early version of the script where Thora Birch's character Dani played a vital role.
"She was going to be our schoolteacher," Escobedo revealed. "I remember talking to Anne about it being a thing where she was our teacher, and we went to her for help."
Thora Birch herself weighed in on why she wasn't in the sequel, telling ET Canada that "there were three options we had for how to bring Dani back, all of which I was excited by."
But unfortunately she, "was working on something else when they were filming. Otherwise I was definitely going to be there on set with the girls."
Thora added that the first film “holds such a special place in my heart.”
Which, same girl! And I think this sequel was a very solid follow-up to this spooky classic, even if we missed some of our original cast.
