Vinessa Shaw says the Hocus Pocus cast felt “ridiculed” when the film bombed in 1993, years before it became a cult favorite.
Shaw remembers crying over the movie on its opening weekend in 1993. The cast got a small screening rather than a premiere, and she said she and Thora Birch later discovered they’d both spent that weekend in tears.
“Well, it bombed, you know, when it first came out,” Shaw, 50, said on Taboo’s Comics & Kicks. “So, it was kind of like we were ridiculed for it.”
Shaw played Allison opposite Birch as Dani Dennison and Omri Katz as Max Dennison. Kenny Ortega directed the film, with Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy playing the Sanderson sisters.
The Halloween movie arrived in theaters in July 1993, while Jurassic Park was competing for audiences. Its initial box office was roughly $40 million on a $28 million production budget. Shaw questioned the summer release, saying she thought a Halloween opening would’ve suited the movie better.
The audience that made it a cult favorite came years later. Shaw credited Disney Channel reruns and repeated rentals: “And that’s because everybody was watching the Disney Channel, renting it a million times ‘til it broke. Um, stealing it.”
Hocus Pocus 2 followed in 2022, and Disney announced a 3rd film was in development in June 2023. In October 2025, Midler said she’d received a script she called “brilliant.”
