Steven Spielberg almost directed ‘Hocus Pocus’
Disney’s remake of the Salem-set film Hocus Pocus promises to be quite different than the original, with none of the original cast involved, including sister witch stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler, and Kathy Najimy. But the 1993 original was itself almost a very different film, with a much darker tone and a noteworthy director: Steven Spielberg.Hocus Pocus co-writer Mick Garris told Entertainment Weekly that the film was originally called Haunted House when it was first written in the 1980s, and was initially intended to be much scarier.“What I had written originally was about 12-year-olds,” Garris said, referring to protagonists Max, Alison, and Dani, who are all 16 in the film. “The kids being younger and in more jeopardy was certainly something more explicitly frightening.”Furthermore, Garris and co-writer David Kirschner originally pitched the film to Steven Spielberg, a former colleague of theirs, in the hopes that he would direct. However, once the Jaws director heard that Disney had bought the rights to the film, he was out.“He loved it until he found out that Disney was already involved,” Garris told EW. “At that time, Disney and Amblin [Spielberg’s company] were very competitive in the family-film market, so neither of them wanted to be in business with the other. [But] it was very close to being a project with Steven Spielberg.”
