Sean Parker
Disney’s D23 expo, dubbed the ultimate fan event for Disney lovers, started today in Anaheim, California, promoting everything the house of mouse has to offer. Those in attendance are getting the comic con treatment catered explicitly to Disney’s upcoming projects, which include more than just movies, shows, and games, but also theme park updates, specialty events, and more. While it’s only day one of the three-day expo, Disney has already been showing off the first look at their latest animated film Wish, revealing a trailer and Disney Plus date for Enchanted sequel Disenchanted, a first trailer for the new Haunted Mansion movie, and finally giving us a more complete impression of the Sanderson sisters’ return with a full Hocus Pocus 2 trailer.
Hocus Pocus 2 has done a fantastic job remaining secretive over the past year since it finished filming. Even the little we’ve been able to glean from the teasers released provides very little to go on. We know there are some new kids, a new black flame candle, somehow Thackery Binx is back, and Sam Richardson (Werewolves Within) is minding a once unkempt Sanderson house.
In the new Hocus Pocus 2 trailer, we see so much more of Richardson as the Witch House caretaker, selling two young girls an enchanted candle that we know turns into a black flame candle through incantation. Plus, an origin story involving Ted Lasso‘s Hannah Waddingham gifting a young Winnifred Sanderson and her sisters their infamous book. The trailer also shows off a ton of gags, from a silly “spread out” joke that I admit got me to chuckle and the return of Billy Butcherson (Doug Jones) chasing Richardson through a cemetery, trying to explain he’s a “good zombie.”
Judging by the look of the trailer, the plot is likely going to be a rinse and repeat of the first film where Winifred (Bette Midler), Mary (Kathy Najimy), and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) have to consume the souls of children to return to the world of the living. It will be up to The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina‘s Whitney Peak and American Horror Stories‘ Belissa Escobedo to fight off the witches for the night in a more modern way than when Omri Katz, Vinessa Shaw, and Thora Birch defeated them almost thirty years ago. Beyond that, it looks like the movie has many new antics to witness in interesting new places, probably because none of Hocus Pocus 2 was shot in Salem, Massachusetts, like most of the original. Instead, Newport and Lincoln, Rhode Island, serve as a stand-in and give off a different, more open look. Regardless, the new Hocus Pocus 2 trailer promises to be a fun and exciting new installment to the Sanderson Sisters’ legacy and, almost certainly, the family film to look forward to in the 2022 spooky season.
The Sanderson Sisters return in Hocus Pocus 2 on September 30, streaming only on Disney Plus.
