Photo: Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock
Bette Midlerand the cast ofHocus Pocusfinally got a sequel to their cult Halloween comedy nearly 30 years after the original premiered in 1993. But the two-time Oscar nominee is still sad that a follow-up to her hit 1996 comedyThe First Wives Clubnever panned out.
Speaking about how she campaigned for years to getHocus Pocus 2made, Midler, 76, recalled how she did the same for Paramount’s comical revenge movie costarringDiane Keaton, 76,Goldie Hawn, 76, and in a smaller role, Midler’sHocus PocuspalSarah Jesica Parker, 57.
Hawn spoke out in 2009, tellingAARP The Magazinethe stars received low-ball offers when it came to their salaries for a potential follow-up. “Diane called me and said, ‘We’ve got to do this.’ … I got a call from the head of the studio, who said, ‘Let’s try to make it work. But I think we should all do it for the same amount of money.’ Now, if there were three men that came back to do a sequel, they would have paid them three times their salary at least.”
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Though Midler, Hawn and Keaton never got to makeThe First Wives Club 2, they all signed on tomake a comedy calledFamily Jewels, which was announced in 2020. The plot centers around three women, who were all once married to the same man, as they are forced to spend the holidays together with the kids and grandkids after their ex dies.
“The script has to be approved and right now they’ve just given us another draft, so I gotta read that,” Hawn toldEntertainment Tonightthat November. “So, we’re inching our way towards it, let’s put it that way.”
Midler also told PEOPLE around that time she was looking forward to it. “I think it’s funny. When women get together, they laugh harder with each other than they do with men,” she said. “I don’t know what it is. I guess they feel freer or something like that.Family Jewelsis something that people have been working on. Sometimes you get stuck in the scriptwriting process and things don’t work out.”
Hocus Pocus 2lands on Disney+ Friday.
source: people.com
