Trailer
Plot summary
Gwen Piper keeps her children Marnie, Dylan and Sophie home on Halloween. Her mother Aggie visits, and Marnie overhears an argument: Gwen wants her daughter raised as a mortal, while Aggie wants to begin Marnie's witch training before her thirteenth birthday, or Marnie loses her powers. Aggie also needs help, since citizens of Halloweentown have been disappearing. When Aggie boards the bus home, Marnie and Dylan sneak after her, and Sophie comes too. In Halloweentown they meet Kalabar, the mayor, who arranges a cab to Aggie's mansion. Aggie decides to keep them and start Marnie's training, but first she must deal with a dark thing in her cauldron that wants Merlin's talisman.
Cast
- Jordyn F. Fieldsas Friend #1 (as Jordyn E. Fields)
- Elizabeth Fugereas Friend #2
- Nurmi Husaas Frankenstein
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Halloweentown (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The initial ending had Marnie travel deep into an enchanted forest to place the talisman, growing older with each step, and the make-up department took a life-mask of Kimberly J. Brown to make the prosthetics to age her before the ending was rewritten.
- In a 2018 interview with Insider, director Duwayne Dunham revealed the film was presented to him as a $20 million to $30 million project, but the budget ended up only being $4 million.
- Judith Hoag, who had previously played April O'Neil in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, read for the part in a meeting with the head of Disney Television, and said she knew in the room that she had got the job because his son was a die-hard Ninja Turtle fan.
- The first person cast was Debbie Reynolds, who at the time had just decided to venture into television work; producer Sheri Singer said that when they saw her name on the list of suggested actors, they never went to anyone else.
- Screenwriter Paul Bernbaum took inspiration from his own life when writing the script, using the names of his children, Marnie, Dylan and Sophie, for the three young protagonists.
- Debbie Reynolds pulled a muscle while filming a dance scene in the theater, and Singer went on to say how impressive it was for the young actors on set to see what a real work ethic was.
