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Bette Midler Hasn’t Seen a Script for Hocus Pocus 3 but Shares ‘Fun’ Idea for Winifred’s Story (Exclusive)
By Eric Andersson
July 19, 2024
The Sanderson sisters in Sag Harbor? Bette Midler would like to see it.
The legendary performer, 78, is pondering the Hocus Pocus 3 script while she waits to see a draft.
Speaking with PEOPLE, the actress and singer, who played Salem, Mass., witch Winifred Sanderson in the original 1993 fantasy-comedy and its 2022 sequel, says she knows a script “should be forthcoming,” adding, “I actually haven’t been paying much attention.”
Asked where she’d like to see Winifred’s story go, the Divine Miss M seizes on the question to make a quip. “Where I would like Winifred to go, hmm? Well, I think the Hamptons. Winifred in the Hamptons, I could go there. That would be fun,” she says.
She notes that Winifred and her sisters Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) “come to such terrible ends at the end of every movie. I mean, you always have to drag them back from the dead, so you have to figure that out,” she says of getting into their specific storylines.
“I can’t figure that out. I can only figure out locations,” she continues. ”Paris, London or the Hamptons!”
In a June 2023 interview with The New York Times, Sean Bailey — who was president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production at the time — confirmed a third installment of the franchise was in the works.
Four months later, Jen D’Angelo, who penned Hocus Pocus 2, told Entertainment Weekly she was figuring out the Sanderson sisters’ next movies. “We’re still in the story phase, we’re still working on it,” said D’Angelo.
“We’ve been working on some ideas, and it’s been fun to dive back into that world, and we have so many directions in which to go and so many new characters to explore,” she added.
During a July appearance on Busy Philipps’ QVC+ talk show Busy This Week, Midler joked about how long the script was taking.
“I think if they’re gonna, they oughta, because time is not just marching, time is barrel-assing to the finish line,” Midler said in a clip obtained by Entertainment Weekly. “Get us while we’re still breathing, I mean, God!”
In Hocus Pocus, Salem teen Max (Omri Katz) inadvertently resurrects the evil Sanderson sisters — who were hanged three decades prior — when he lights the Black Flame Candle on Halloween at the sisters’ former home. They wreak havoc on the town before meeting their demise.
The sequel sees the sisters resurrected yet again, giving insight into how the Sandersons became witches centuries ago.
Midler’s latest movie, The Fabulous Four, is very much set in reality (and present day). She plays Marilyn, a widow who hosts her longtime friends (Sheryl Lee Ralph, Susan Sarandon and Megan Mullally) at her Key West, Fla., home when she decides to wed again.
Old tensions come to the surface — but there’s plenty of levity in the comedy courtesy of the stars, whom Midler calls “really great comics.”
“I knew them, I loved them, I admired their work,” she says.
The Fabulous Four is in theaters July 26.
For more on Bette Midler, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.
