The Untold Truth Of Hocus Pocus

Disney released "Hocus Pocus" in July of 1993, a Halloween-themed, big-screen comedy about a trio of diabolical 300-year-old witches; the women are resurrected in the modern era after being executed in Salem centuries earlier. Featuring the star power of Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker as the spell-casting Sanderson sisters, "Hocus Pocus" was hardly a blockbuster. A modest hit at best, "Hocus Pocus" conjured up a mere $39 million at the box office (for comparison's sake, that year's biggest film, "Jurassic Park," raked in nearly $340 million).

One reason why the film didn't take off may have been its release date — who puts out a Halloween movie in the middle of the summer? Another factor could have been poor reviews, such as Janet Maslin's piece in The New York Times, which declared "Hocus Pocus" to be "an unholy mess."

Yet the years have been kind to "Hocus Pocus." Thanks to home video and annual Halloween airings on TV, what was once a badly reviewed bomb is now revered as a beloved cult classic. Keep reading to find out the untold truth of "Hocus Pocus." 

As envisioned by screenwriter Mick Garris, "Hocus Pocus" was initially far more frightening than the slapstick comedy that wound up onscreen. "What I had written originally was about 12-year-olds," Garris told Entertainment Weekly. "The kids being younger and in more jeopardy was certainly something more explicitly frightening." Garris was ultimately able to make a course correction by increasing the ages of two of the children, making them 16 instead of 12. This, he explained, reduced the scariness.

Garris elaborated in an interview with SlashFilm, revealing he "did the first couple of drafts" before other writers were brought on. Numerous rewrites ensued, and the project remained in limbo for eight years, until the script made its way to Bette Midler. Once Midler was attached, production proceeded full speed ahead, with Garris' original script serving as the template. "Basically, they had gone back to the script that I had done," he recalled. "They had made some changes — it was much more broadly comedic." He added that while his script was darker, other writers' commercial instincts were superior to his.

Before he stepped behind the camera, "Hocus Pocus" director Kenny Ortega had a career as a successful choreographer. That experience served him well when making "Hocus Pocus," particularly in the scenes in which the Sanderson sisters fly around on their broomsticks.

According to the "Hocus Pocus" production information, Ortega brought in choreographer Peggy Holmes so she could coach stars Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker on developing each character's specific physical traits, in terms of how they moved and how each related to the other. This was particularly true when it came to the flying sequences, with Holmes explaining that each of the stars rode their broomsticks "in character." Midler's character, Winnifred, "is in charge and much more aggressive than the other two. She's always leading the way and looking for children." Parker's character, Sarah, "loves to fly ... and can't wait to get up in the air." 

Najimy's character, Mary, on the other hand, "is more cautious. Like a good driver, she signals with her hand. Mary is the safe and steady flier." That's just one of the things about "Hocus Pocus" you only notice as an adult.

According to "Hocus Pocus" production information, production designer William Sandell utilized the largest sound stage at Disney's Burbank studios to construct the Sanderson sisters' house. "We looked at a number of restored and preserved houses in Salem," he explained, revealing the design they came up with was "an amalgam of everybody's vision of a witch's house — from fairy tales to Mother Goose."

When constructing the house on set, Sandell's attention to detail (specifically in maintaining authenticity to the period) was beyond impressive; he utilized the same techniques that the original Salem settlers would have used 300 years earlier. "It's a mortise and tenon old-style architecture where the logs are split and seamed together," he continued, explaining that the process included imitating "a wattle and daub, which is a technique of mixing clay with chopped straw, used originally by New Englanders in lieu of plaster to weatherize their houses."

The resulting structure was so solid, Sandell declared, that "you could take this house, place it on a hill somewhere, bring it up to code and live in it." That's something he's like to do himself.

One particularly memorable scene in "Hocus Pocus" involves the zombie-like Billy Butcherson, the unfaithful ex-boyfriend of Bette Midler's Winnifred. Billy, played by Doug Jones, takes a knife and slices the stitches sewing his lips together. And when he finally opens his mouth, he exhales a puff of dust, followed by a bunch of moths. 

Unlike Binx, no CGI was involved in this scene. Tony Gardner, who handled the special effects makeup, revealed to Bloody Disgusting that actual live moths flew out of the actor's mouth. According to Gardner, the illusion was created by using a "mouth rig," a small pocket fashioned from latex that attached from upper and lower dentures in Jones' mouth, intended to block his throat. 

Once it had been set up, "an animal wrangler would place several moths in the pocket with tweezers, under the supervision of a representative from the Humane Society," Gardner explained. "Then the stitches would be glued shut, and we'd run out of frame so that they could get to the shot as fast as possible."

As "Hocus Pocus" built up a cult following over the years, many eager fans began calling for a sequel, anxious for "Hocus Pocus 2." Many of those fans, however, were probably not aware that a sequel already existed — but it had to be read, not watched.

In 2018, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the film's release, Disney published "Hocus Pocus & the All-New Sequel." Described as an "electrifying two-part young adult novel," the first half essentially recaps the events of the film in novel form. In the second half, set 25 years later, readers meet Max's 17-year-old daughter, Poppy, who is joined by her teenage pals to face off against the recently resurrected Sanderson sisters.  

The book's synopsis also promises that the novel will reveal the origins of "resting witch face."

Bette Midler remains proud of the work that she and the cast did in the 1993 original. In 2018, Midler attended a 25th-anniversary screening, and admitted she was impressed with how well it had stood the test of time. "I watched it again for the first time ... I haven't seen it in years, and it was so good," she told "Entertainment Tonight." "I had forgotten how good it was and how good everybody was." She added that at the time, she wasn't aware of how talented the rest of the cast was — though she referred to co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as "those girls in the background."

Parker subsequently appeared on "Watch What Happens Live," where a caller asked for her feedback on Midler's remarks. Rather than take offense at what could be perceived as a diss, Parker preferred to laugh it off. "I was proud to be in her down wind," she quipped. Given how much the stars of "Hocus Pocus" are worth now, there's no reason to be mad, anyway.

Over the years, "Hocus Pocus" has grown to become a beloved Halloween perennial. However, the film's status as a classic certainly wasn't reflected at the box office when it was first released. According to Box Office Mojo, the film initially earned a rather anemic sum of $39 million domestically; as Variety pointed out, given that the film cost $28 million to make, that placed the film squarely in the "bomb" category. One key reason for the movie's disappointing ticket sales was that "Hocus Pocus," which has since become closely associated with Halloween, came out in July.

"Hocus Pocus" would have been consigned to the list of long-forgotten Hollywood flops had it not been for the emerging home-video market. Released on VHS in early 1994, noted Slashfilm, the movie found a second life when it was rediscovered by viewers via video. After it was released on DVD in 2002, its popularity grew even more, and The Wrap estimated that "Hocus Pocus" has generated about $1 million in sales each October ever since 2011. 

Meanwhile, the Disney-produced movie also came to be featured each October on Disney-owned TV platforms such as Disney Channel and Freeform; in fact, the movie has long been the cornerstone of the latter's "13 Nights of Halloween" programming event. According to The Wrap, Freeform's annual airing of "Hocus Pocus" has topped the ratings as the No. 1 cable movie telecast each October since 2017 in the highly desirable 18-34 demographic.

When a movie is filmed, there is often a plethora of footage that doesn't make it into the final cut once they film is edited down to a reasonable running time. "Hocus Pocus" was certainly no exception to this practice, but what makes the film stand out is that some of the scenes that didn't make it into the finished film actually did see the light of day, when they appeared in the trailer. 

As Collider pointed out, the trailer features a snippet of Winifred (Bette Midler) falling into a swimming pool — a scene that does not appear in the actual movie. Meanwhile, another clip in the trailer shows Winifred and her sisters Mary and Sarah (Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker) being surrounded by trick-or-treaters demanding candy, and another in which Mary and Winifred look through lockers in a school hallway — neither of which were in the movie.

As fans of "Hocus Pocus" will recall, Binx the cat had been transformed into a feline via witchcraft, and was actually a human male named Thackery Binx. The character in human form was played young actor Sean Murray, who would go on to see much success in the future playing Special Agent Timothy McGee in mega-hit procedural crime drama "NCIS." 

What fans may not realize, however, is that while Murray may have appeared as human Binx, when the character was in feline form another actor provided the voice: James Marsden. 

Speaking with the Daily Beast in 2017, Marsden explained why he wound up voicing Binx instead of Murray. According to Marsden, Murray had originally done all the cat voiceovers for Binx. "They were using him first and animating his performance," Marsden said, revealing that producers ultimately felt Murray's voice work just wasn't quite right. "It's one of those things that happen in movies all the time. Movies are shot, written, go into production, and then take on a voice of their own," Marsden said. "Sean has a very contemporary sound. After it was all said and done, they — and I'm sure they worked with him on this — after the movie evolved they thought it would be more realistic, since the witches come from this time period, that Binx should also have an affected accent."