“The Witches” Remake Trailer has Dropped!

UGH! Loved the original

cultural mash-up

This looks terrible. I also loved the original. It was way dark for a kid's movie and Angelica Huston was terrifying!

Roald Dahl would definitely not approve.

Anne hathaway? Pfft no thanks. I prefer actresses to have a personality

Anne with an E? Hard pass. I’ll just watch the original again.

Anne really thinks a lot of herself.

There's things I like about it (the black characters, the song), and things that I don't (Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch).

Catherine Zeta-Jones would have made a great Grand High Witch.

I agree, R9. The best part is that they wouldn't need to spend a fortune on special effects for when the Grand Witch gets her wig and shoes off, and shows her true grotesque self: they would only need to film CZJ without makeup!

They could also save quite a bit of money by adding Michael Douglas as part of her retinue of witches. He already looks like a wrinkly old hen - again, no makeup and special effects needed.

She could have done a different accent for the Grand High Witch.

I didn't love how the original movie changed the ending from the book, but I loved spotting Bubble from "Ab Fab" in the film as a witch.

These are all supporting actors. Who is the lead?

Hathaway seems like she'd be better fit as the Assistant Witch that Bubble from Ab Fab played in the original.

You people are such sticks in the mud. You all hate every movie or tv show that comes out.

The Hathaway hate was pure bandwagon mindlessness.

She always brings the fun to a movie. She makes them real. She is a good actress and gets no credit.

The CGI in the trailer looks so lifelike.

I agree, r14. Anne is a very good actress, and fun to watch. I don't get the need for such seething malevolence. I have been in mosh pits more civil than this place.

Meh

Anne is my kind of actress. The type that absolutely loves movies and acting and the types that were always trying out for all the school plays etc...

But besides that, think about all the terrible people in Hollywood and get back to me about bad Anne is.

Roald Dahl called the Nicolas Roeg adaptation "Utterly appalling". He was notoriously hard to please...

what accent is Anne using?

[quote] what accent is Anne using?

Generic Eastern European.

The kind of accent you hear in a U.K. branch of Aldi shouting at someone to hurry up packing their shopping as there’s a queue.

Or the kind you hear in the White House.

[quote] Roald Dahl would definitely not approve.

Roald Dahl is the Mel Gibson on kids books, i.e. a sympathiser who abused women.

Glasgow Smiles are going to be the next body-mod trend. Hopefully they replace rather than have to sit on the same faces as those awful caterpillar eyebrows.

[quote] Roald Dahl is the Mel Gibson on kids books, i.e. a sympathiser who abused women.

That should be a NAZI sympathiser.

Repulsive.

[quote]There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason. I mean, if you and I were in a line moving towards what we knew were gas chambers, I’d rather have a go at taking one of the guards with me; but they [the Jews] were always submissive.”

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I hate Anne Hathaway so much, so this is a no from me. Why remake the Anjelica Huston one?

Robert Zemeckis used to be the trendsetter but now his film is being dumped on streaming. Sad.

I think Anne looks like she'll do a decent job, but Huston was perfect.

I didn't realize they were switching the story to America but Octavia Spencer is a great choice for the grandmother.

Love the dark original Grim fairytale mood of the one with Anjelica Houston, but even that one chickened out and turned the kid back into human again at the end.

This one looks more kids friendly (aka. Disney) fun. And I love Octavia Spencer. And I am sorry if I am alone with this, but Anne seems to chew the scenery with such gusto that I find it quite entertaining.

It would have caused Dahl great distress to know that his beloved granddaughter Sophie married not just a Jew but the grandson of a Jew who fled Nazi Germany. Sophie and Jamie Cullum have 2 lovely Jewish children.

[quote] Robert Zemeckis used to be the trendsetter but now his film is being dumped on streaming. Sad.

Have you heard about this thing called Covid? It’s this thing that turns people into coughing zombies if you cough on them and lots of people cough in cinema because of the popcorn dust mixed with carbonated sugary drinks so most cinemas have closed and the big film companies are delaying the big budget films until they find a cure or putting them on tv streaming.

What a fucking mess.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Is this "Everyone Hates Chris"?

Even one of Hathaway's signature bad accents couldn't ruin this one for me. Looks great all around.

This is supposed to be scary?

[Quote] but even that one chickened out and turned the kid back into human again at the end.

How does the book end??

What is this shit?

I am not (totally) ancient - just 37 - but this is why I won't watch anything made after 1994. Filmmaking lost its balls... Trailer is vom-inducing. *Hurrrrrl*

R29 The children are not jewish jewish.

[quote][R29] The children are not jewish jewish.

They're Jewish enough for Dahl to have been sickened by it, which is Jewish enough for me.

Another bland, focus group, inoffensive kiddie feature...

Death Becomes Her is the only good Zemeckis film

If I recall correctly R36, the book ends with kid just living out the rest of his life as a mouse with his grandmother.

Who will play the Bette Midler part?

R43 hmm i can see why they wouldn't want to stick with that ending for the movie.

[quote]How does the book end??

He stays a mouse. The book is very faithful to the book except that I believe the with drools blue drool. Anjelica speaks exactly the way the character speaks in the book and looks exactly as she does in the illustrations. Dahl was elated that she had been cast.

I love the question on another site that said, "How are black folks staying in a white hotel in the 1960s?" This film is so faaaaar away from the source material. I knew it would be horrible the minute Hathaway was cast. The book isn't set in the 1960s with a black family. They're Norwegian. So they can't say, "Our version is more faithful to the book and that's why we made it."

So limme guess, it's only the bottom half of Hathaway's face that's fake?

Did they just film this shit on a blue screen?

At least they're saying 'Re-imagined by Robert Zemeckis". It's not the book.

R42, Back To The Future is a really good movie.

No one goes to see Anne Hathaway in a damn thing anymore. get real

The desperation in her eyes is really obvious now. AnnE we’re just not that into you as Oprah would say.

I think the casting is creative with Hathaway and especially Spencer as the grandmother but the CGI looks awful.

[quote]This film is so faaaaar away from the source material. I knew it would be horrible the minute Hathaway was cast. The book isn't set in the 1960s with a black family. They're Norwegian. So they can't say, "Our version is more faithful to the book and that's why we made it."

It must be so exhausting being you.

Last Christmas a ne BBC production of A Christmas Carol got the loonies out screaming WHY IS BOB CRATCHITS WIFE MIXED RACE ITS SO UNREALISTIC ITS LITRULLY RUINED MY XMAS when they had no problem the concept of ghosts and time travel.

Now it's WHY ARE THERE BLACKS STAYING IN A HOTEL ITS SO UNREALISTIC and when the concept of children being turned into mice is just OK WHATEVER.

Putting aside my disdain for Anne Hathaway, the parts without her actually seem like an improvement on the original. I loved The Witches as a child, but Anne is a poor successor to Angelica Huston. When I first saw the movie poster I thought she was Kate McKinnon, which would’ve been an improvement.

Zemeckis can be a great filmmaker. I Wanna Hold Your Hand from 1978 is a fun movie and Romancing the Stone is fun, too, mostly because of Kathleen Turner.

This is a reimagined take on the source material. And there were integrated Hotels in the 60s 🙄🙄🙄

Some places started integrating in the 40s, for Christ’s sake.

[quote]This is a reimagined take on the source material. And there were integrated Hotels in the 60s 🙄🙄🙄

It's set in Alabama in the 1960s.

[quote]Last Christmas a ne BBC production of A Christmas Carol got the loonies out screaming WHY IS BOB CRATCHITS WIFE MIXED RACE ITS SO UNREALISTIC ITS LITRULLY RUINED MY XMAS when they had no problem the concept of ghosts and time travel.

Way to miss the point. The word they gave as the reason they were doing this, was to make a film that was closest to the source material. It now turns out that it couldn't be any further if it tried, making this adaptation completely useless.

Alabama began the process of desegregation in the 1960s. The film probably, or at least should reflect this.

That being said, there was no need for this reimagining. It adds nothing and if anything, it's a slap in the face to the original and the book. If Dahl was upset with the 1990 version, this one would have outright killed him.

The original idea was for Guillermo del Toro to make a stop-action version. That would have been interesting. Not this crap.

The last good film that Zemeckis made was "What Lies Beneath" and that was 20 years ago.

R62 i can't believe Clark Gregg wrote that movie.

why, r63?

[quote]Way to miss the point. The word they gave as the reason they were doing this, was to make a film that was closest to the source material. It now turns out that it couldn't be any further if it tried, making this adaptation completely useless.

It's a film about WITCHES WHO TURN KIDS INTO MICE and you're complaining about how historically authentic the film is for casting black actors!

Your point is not being missed, it's crystal clear!

AnnE hasn't had a hit for years. I do like Octavia though.

r35's photo reminds me of the drag queen, Yvie Oddly, Out of drag.

Here he is in drag:

frightening R68

Roald Dahl treated our beloved Patricia Neal like shite.

[quote]It's a film about WITCHES WHO TURN KIDS INTO MICE and you're complaining about how historically authentic the film is for casting black actors!

That's not what I said. You're an idiot. I'm sure you've been told that repeatedly throughout your miserable life.

A drag queen as the Grand High Witch would be amazing, or Cher, which is much the same thing.

Indeed, r72. Plus Yvie has a condition which makes all her ligaments super loose, so she can crabwalk upside down, Exorcist style, and has a scalp that looks like a brain:

Well that didn't fucking work. Let's try this:

wonder why hathaway has become so unappealing. not sure....seems smarmy n stuff..

Her Oscar campaign turned people off. She's never really recovered from that. Winning the Oscar really didn't do much for her career.

Hathaway isn't a bad actress by any stretch, but she just doesn't have much screen presence. But to be fair, not many actors do anymore.

R72 Cher was among those considered for the role that eventually went to Huston. And while Cher is my #1, Huston was PERFECT in the role, and achieved a performance that I just don't think Cher was capable of. But now that they've remade it, I'd love to see what she'd have done with it.

"not many actors do anymore" - so true, r77

This looks dreadful and not at all scary. Anne Hathaway is a terrible choice for the Grand High Witch; she’s not intimidating and her accent work is terrible. Eva Green or Famke Janssen would have been much better, but no one could top what Anjelica Huston did in the original .

Octavia Spencer I find far more likable as a personality, but not a particularly skilled or versatile actress. Her line readings are safe and predictable and she’s just not that interesting to watch. Swap her out for Lorraine Toussaint and we might have something decent.

R18, of course Anne is a wonderful person and would great fun to have as a friend. She's awesomely cool and I like her a lot.

But as an actor, she's bland to the point of being unmemorable in almost everything. She's OK in a few things like the Devil Wears Prada, because the character is a really good person who is basically bland. But as a performer she's generally boring, and over-the-top makeup and special effects are not going to change that.

I have no issue with the casting, but will the grand high witch be ripping her face off? Will the little girl be captured and stuck in that painting? It already looks like the witch with the snake who tries to capture Luke will be far less sinister and come with a computer generated snake to boot. There's no way this will be anywhere near as terrifying as the original.

R35 no but this is.

Miss Huston had to suffer big time on the set of the original one. But it was definitely worth it, because those practical makeup effects looked only a million times better than the awful CGI mouth on AnnE.

[quote] The elaborate makeup effects for Huston's Grand High Witch took six hours to apply, and another six to remove. Huston described a monologue scene she had to do where "I was so uncomfortable and tired of being encased in rubber under hot lights for hours that the lines had ceased to make sense to me and all I wanted to do was cry. The green vapour used extensively at the end of the film was oil based, and would obscure the contacts in Huston's eyes, which had to be regularly flushed out with water by an expert.

R83 Dear God in heaven!

The movie should instead be called "Karens".

The movie should instead be called "Karens".

R83 reminds me of Fright Night.

yes. it's not very original or anything approaching the practical effects of the original

Please stop dropping trailers. I just vacuumed.

CGI lacks charm and artistry.

Looks like shit

[quote] Catherine Zeta-Jones would have made a great Grand High Witch.

CASA Zeta Jones!

Hope it flops

It won’t.

Im watching it right now...via Putlocker...so far it looks good, but sorry, Chris Rock is narrating as the little boy grown up and man is it distracting. He takes you right out of it....

More faithful to the book...production was good, its a kids movie.

Is it more faithful to the book though, R97? Yesterday I watched the new one on HBO Max and today I went ahead and rented the old one on amazon. My husband was complaining in the background during both movies, but even he admitted the original was more captivating and a better movie.

The CGI is lackluster compared to the extensive makeup and Jim Henson puppets used in the original. Not only does it serve to make the witches seem more scary and lifelike, it makes for a much more exciting film from a filmmaking perspective. The story is not an easy one to translate to film without CGI, and I was constantly impressed by how inventive and original the filmmakers were to make the story work. The new movie just seems lazy in comparison.

I agree with the poster who said that Chris Rock takes you just completely out of it.

The casting of Anjelica Huston was perfection. Eva or Famke are interesting ideas too. AnnE did her best, and was fine. Maybe I liked the boy in the new one better— the actor in the original didn’t really add anything to the movie, but everything else was just so inspired it didn’t seem to matter as much.

Overall, the original was just more exciting and captured the sinister vibe perfectly. I loved it.

Yes, the original was better due to Angelica Houston...the production was better in the sequel...the ending was more like the book in the sequel. Chris Rock was a major misstep in casting, Anne Hathaway held her own. Loved the girl turned into a chicken in the beginning.

I always like Anne Hathaway (despite the Datalounge hatred of her), and I give her credit for trying to make it doing character work now that her ingenue days are gone. She's still a beautiful woman, and she's a genuinely good actress.

She did indeed act like an asshole the season she was up for Best Supporting Actress for "Les Miserables," but she freely admits it now and makes fun of how ridiculously she behaved, and she didn't do anything that hurt anyone--she just came across as too desperate for the Oscar and to desperate to be a pretty princess on TV. BIG DEAL. At least she's not a stuck-up cunt like Gwyneth Paltrow who tries to get women to shove jade eggs up their vaginas, or someone who helps Donald Trump through her selfish politics like Susan Sarandon.

And as for Datalounge mocking her for years because she made a point of insisting her first name is spelled with an "E": Barbra Streisand will correct interviewers on TV right on the spot if they pronounce her last name wrong, and no one mocks her for that.

Were there any twists?

I though it was lady Gaga in the OP ......

I'm gonna watch it, but that reveal scene flopped. Hathaway can't do the accent. It is extremely unfortunate that this role went to her.

Anjelica Huston is still alive, looks great and is available for work. She should have reprised the role. Was she even offered it? Age discrimination.

I can list about 10 actresses right now that could have played this role better than Hathaway.

It's honestly a hate crime that this ever was allowed to happen. I'm sorry, Anne. You'll always be the queen of Genovia

AH wasnt bad...so get over your hate.

R105 I don't share your mediocre perspective.

Look homosexuals, Vox’s perma-triggered trans culture critic, “Aja” Romano, completely agrees it’s shit. “She’s” our ally on this one!

Bonus points — “she” points out all the reasons the original story is “problematic.” Of course “she” does!

R107 There's been so many nuanced and clever takedowns of transes issued in the last decade and exactly 0 of them have come from you.

"She" haha, get it? See what I just did there? "She." Incase you missed it, again it's "she."

Anjelica Huston really needs to be scooped up by Ryan Murphy. She'd be great for American Horror Story.

A nigger isn’t Norwegian, Jim. Back to school for reading comp.

Horrendous. Anne with an E acting as if she were performing in a high school play.

[quote]I'm gonna watch it, but that reveal scene flopped. Hathaway can't do the accent.

Which accent, R103? In 1990, Anjelica Huston affected a German accent, in order to encourage the impression of her Grand High Witch as being a Nazi. The Grand High Witch in this film is different, in keeping with Grandma's disclosure (and that of the book) that the GHW was hatched out of an egg on an ice floe in Norway.

I was never an AnnE fan until Modern Love. I thought she was great.

[quote]In 1990, Anjelica Huston affected a German accent, in order to encourage the impression of her Grand High Witch as being a Nazi.

Anjelica spoke exactly the way the witch does in the book. Have you ever read it? She's German.

r113 = AnnE

[quote]Anjelica spoke exactly the way the witch does in the book. Have you ever read it? She's German.

The book does not say that she's German, R114.

From the Roald Dahl wiki:

[quote]▪ In the book, it is revealed that the Grand High Witch is Norwegian, and she is also a famous baroness (or has falsely established herself as one) in Norway.

Love that AnnE's makeup for the role is essentially the same as Lureen's at the end of BBM.

I loved his books as a kid. I read his short stories as an adult and they are definitely not for children; sexy, dark and twisted but lots of fun.

Anne looks radiant!

How many integrated luxury hotels did they have in Alabama in the 1960's??? Seems like woke revisionist history to me.

For me the only negative thing about the remake was that everything that happened after the boy was turned felt rushed. The children's' quest was pretty uneventful in terms of overcoming obstacles. Everything fell into place without much effort. Including the final showdown. Other than that it was pretty decent.

she is major box office poison....

Watched it last night. AnnE was great, but the movie around her...meh. She really gave in to the camp aspect.

I went to a screening of the original in LA last year. Anjelica came for a moderated chat after and she told a story about how she was filming a project in Spain, came out of her rental and there was a crowd of children who started screaming La Bruja!

The original terrified me as a child. I can't imagine anyone past the age of 4 being scared of this.

Is this on HBO Max? I might watch if it’s free.

r125...go to putlocker or another site....its free

[quote] The book does not say that she's German, [R114].

The book had he speaking with a German accent.

R29: Dahl and Cullum's children would not be considered Jewish, with a Gentile mother and a father who only had a Jewish dad. Those kids only have one Jewish grandparent--and a male one, at that.

I loved the book as a kid and always found it really disappointing that they de-mousified the kid in the movie, but the original was far better in every other way than the remake. The charm of the book and first movie was the scariness of it all and the new film was just too cutesy. The narration didn't help because you knew the kid/mouse would be fine in the end if he was recalling the story. AnnE was just okay - the floating around didn't help. Although Octavia Spencer was amazing (as usual), the movie was nothing special. If I had kids I would play them the original instead.

Morgana Robinson (Pippa from The Windsors) was wasted in the tiny role of Brunos mother

This one had no attempts to send an infant over a cliff. BOOOOOO

Reported on Imdb.com, Dahl's [last words to his family] It's just that I will miss you all so much. [a nurse injected a needle onto him] Ow, fuck!

[quote]The book had he speaking with a German accent.

The book does not identify the accent as German, R127. From page 26:

[quote]"You may rrree-moof your vigs!" snarled The Grand High Witch. She had a peculiar way of speaking. There was some sort of a foreign accent there, something harsh and guttural, and she seemed to have trouble pronouncing the letter w. As well as that, she did something funny with the letter r. She would roll it round and round her mouth like a piece of hot pork-crackling before spitting it out. "Rrree-moof your vigs and get some fresh air into your spotty scalps!" she shouted, and another sigh of relief arose from the audience as all the hands went up to the heads and all the wigs (with the hats still on them) were lifted away.

I have no skin in the game over the accent debate, but I appreciate the fact that R133 went to the original source material to find an answer.

I just loved the book when I was little. You guys are making me want to read it again!

My R133 post has a link to the text of the book, R134. ;)