From Yahoo:
"The Magical Tale of How 'Hocus Pocus' Went From Box-Office Flop to Halloween Favorite"
When Hocus Pocus opened in theaters in July 1993, it didn’t seem to put a spell on anyone. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the Bette Midler-starring comedy about three Salem witches thrust into present day “an unholy mess.” Roger Ebert’s review said the movie’s three bumbling spell-casters “don’t have personalities; they have behavior patterns and decibel levels.” The Associated Press was even harsher: “The only real curses in this film,” wrote Patricia Bibby, “will be yours as you walk up the aisle to leave.” Ticket sales weren’t any better. The movie debuted in fourth place at the weekend box office, quickly dropped out of the top 10, and ultimately earned just $39.5 million, a disappointment for its studio, Walt Disney. (It probably didn’t help that it opened against the equally family-friendly Free Willy and had to compete against dino juggernaut Jurassic Park.)Almost as soon as it arrived, Hocus Pocus seemed poised to go poof and disappear. But over the past two decades, the movie about a trio of resurrected witchy women has come back from the dead, enchanting old fans and luring in new ones on DVD, streaming video, and annual TV airings;sparking social media love from fans who never met an image of Midler’s Winifred Sanderson they couldn’t turn into a meme; emerging as a central part of Walt Disney World’s Halloween celebration; and possibly spawning a sequel, if the film’s creatorhas his way. What It’s a Wonderful Life is to Christmas, Hocus Pocus has officially become to Halloween. It only took a couple of decades — give or take. How did it happen? We asked two of the men who crafted its story, and others, to explain. Hocus Pocus began as a bedtime story that David Kirschner, producer and co-writer of the film, told his two young daughters in the 1980s. That narrative’s basic elements would, eventually, inform the movie’s plot: A 17th-century boy named Thackery Binx tries to save his sister from three evil witches, who turn him into a cat, but who are eventually put to death by the townspeople of Salem, Mass. Three hundred years later, the witches reappear on Halloween night, after a virgin lights the black flame candle. Kirschner’s ideas sprang from his longtime love of All Hallows’ Eve as well as some personal events from his childhood: Binx the cat, for example, was named after Inks, an actual black cat he took in as a boy. “Halloween is a huge deal in our home, and it has been since our daughters were little,” Kirschner says. Shooting began in October 1992, with Kenny Ortega — who’d served as the choreographer on Dirty Dancing and recently directed Newsies — at the helm. Other notables were involved as well: John Debney, who would later earn an Academy Award nomination for his work on The Passion of the Christ, composed the score, while James Horner — who had already earned several Oscar nods, and would later win for his Titanic score — co-wrote “Sarah’s Theme,” the “Come little children” siren song Parker croons while riding her broomstick. (Horner died earlier this year in a plane crash.) With so much talent assembled, it seemed like Hocus Pocus couldn’t miss. Then it did. When it came out, it laid a tiny little bit of an egg, so we didn’t expect much,” Midler said last year in a Reddit AMA. “And now look at it! OCTOBER is HOCUS POCUS MONTH!” In the years that followed, Hocus Pocus did indeed achieve a cult status that eventually bled into the mainstream. According to information compiled by movie data site the Numbers, between October of 2008 and Oct. 4 of this year, it generated $21 million in DVD and Blu-ray revenues, the majority of which was earned in the October months. As of this writing, Hocus Pocus is No. 2 on Amazon’s list of bestsellers in the movies and TV category, and second on iTunes’ ranking of most popular movies for children and families. The repeated broadcasts of Hocus Pocus on television, most notably during ABC Family’s annual “13 Nights of Halloween” programming block, also have made the film’s popularity go “amok, amok, amok.” In 2011, 2.8 million people tuned in to the primetime broadcast of the movie on Oct. 29, the Saturday before Halloween. The Oct. 19 debut of Hocus Pocus during this year’s “13 Nights” attracted 1.7 million viewers, according to data provided by ABC Family. This year for the first time, Orlando’s Walt Disney World added a Hocus Pocus show —the “Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular” — to its Halloween festivities, making the Sanderson sisters as integral to the Magic Kingdom as Space Mountain. Allison McKinnon, a spokeswoman for the park, says that 22 out of the 25 Halloween party nights sold out in advance, a new record. Now that Hocus Pocus is universally beloved, will there be a sequel? Midler, Najimy, and Parker have publicly expressed willingness to star in one in the past. Just this week, Midler toyed with a follow-up again, sending out a tongue-in-cheek tweet about the sequel being delayed because Disney is “having trouble finding a virgin.”
^ I was living in Germany when the movie first came out in the US and never got to see it until years later. I have to say that I now watch it at least once every Halloween. It's got a scary element (albeit Disney scary and not horror movie scary) and also a "feel good" vibe to it. ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.