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    Halloweentown 5 Happening After 20 Years—and It’s Not Vastly Overrated

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    Watch: Kimberly J. Brown, Daniel Kountz Bring Halloweentown Reunion to Hallmark

    Attention all witches, wizards, ghouls and goblins—it’s time to return to Halloweentown once again.

    Twenty years after the release of the fourth Halloweentown film, Return to Halloweentown, Disney is brewing up a fifth installment, according to multiple outlets.

    Halloweentown 5—which will air on Disney Channel and stream Disney+ if greenlit—is being written by Lily Houghton (Forbidden Fruits) and Ryan Koehn (Gossip Girl), based on the characters created by Paul Bernbaum, who wrote the screenplay of the first Halloweentown.

    E! News has reached out to Disney but has yet to hear back.

    While further details have yet to be revealed, several original cast members have shared they’re ready to bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble again and reprise their roles in the new project, per Variety.

    Halloweentown cast its first spell in October 1998, with the original film starring Kimberly J. Brown as Marnie Piper, who learns on her 13th birthday that she comes from a line of powerful witches, the Cromwells, and sets out on a journey to train her powers to ultimately save Halloweentown—an alternate dimension where supernatural creatures can live freely from the human world.

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    These 15 Secrets About Halloweentown Are Not Vastly Overrated

    The Disney fantasy comedy franchise continued with Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge (2001), Halloweentown High (2004) and Return to Halloweentown (2006). 

    Alongside Brown, the other stars in Halloweentown’s magical cast include the late Debbie Reynolds, who played Marnie’s grandma Aggie, along with Joey Zimmerman, Judith Hoag and Emily Roeske.

    While Brown infamously did not reprise her role as Marnie in Return to Halloweentown—with Sara Paxton replacing her as the lead—she’s made it clear that she’s ready to pick up her broom once again for a potential fifth movie.

    Singer White/Ventura Valley Film/Kobal/Shutterstock

    “We would all love to do another one,” Brown told E! News in 2024. “Disney knows I’m down to do another one. I’ve been telling fans to tell Disney that they would watch it if it came out. The ball is in Disney’s court.”

    As for what the 41-year-old—who married her Halloweentown II costar Daniel Kountz in 2024—would like to see Marnie and the gang get into in a fifth installment, she believes there are “so many possibilities.”

    “Marnie would be teaching a new generation of witches or running for mayor,” Brown shared. “I feel like she would still be passionately involved in her community and bringing everybody together because that’s what she loved doing.”

    Until more spell-tacular details are discovered about Halloweentown 5, keep reading for a deep dive into the franchise’s magical secrets…

    Singer White/Ventura Valley Film/Kobal/Shutterstock

    1. How did the idea for Halloweentown come to be? It’s simple: Creator Sheri Singer‘s stepdaughter once asked, “Where do all the creatures from Halloween go the rest of the year when it’s not October 31?'” 2. NBC initially bought the concept as a movie that would air at 9 p.m.…until the network ended up not doing anything with it as it felt too young for their adult audience.3. Years later, Singer and Steve White brought it to Disney Channel, who initially passed. But after the success of their first original movie, 1997’s Under Wraps, they reconsidered.

    Singer White/Ventura Valley Film/Kobal/Shutterstock

    4. Because it was now a Disney production, the movie was changed a bit to skew even younger. “We were able to be very whimsical. We needed to create these really interesting characters,” Singer said. “They were fun and slightly scary, but not too scary.”5.  While she wasn’t what the producers initially had in mind when it came to the young witch’s physical appearance (they were going for a blonde),  Singer said that 13-year-old Kimberly J. Brown “blew everyone else away” and landed the role of Marnie.

    Singer White/Ventura Valley Film/Kobal/Shutterstock

    6. The first actor cast in the project?  Legendary star Debbie Reynolds as Aggie, the witchy grandmother everyone wished they had.”Debbie had decided she wanted to open herself up to doing some television. When we saw the list, we took one look at her name and said, oh my god, would she really do it?” Singer recalled. “This is absolutely unbelievably blessed and terrific idea for casting. And she did. We never went to anyone else.”7. Production chose St. Helens, a small town outside of Portland, Ore., to build Halloweentown. Because of the Mount St. Helens volcano eruption in 1980, it was mostly a “ghost town,” according to Singer, so the locals were welcoming to the crew.”They were so grateful to have us there and so easy to work with. We had a good crew up there and it fit the demands of the movie. We made all these storefronts. It was really fun and became very iconic.”

    Disney Channel/Reel Fx Creative/Kobal/Shutterstock

    8. Brown will occasionally break out one of her outfits from the film to wear on Halloween, a tradition Debbie, who died in 2016, passed onto her.”Debbie gave me the idea, but she had Aggie’s cape and the purple dress and she used to answer the door for trick-or-treaters on Halloween in the outfit,” Brown shared. “I started doing it, too, one or two years in a row, I put on Marnie’s outfit, and gave out candy.”9. In the fourth and final installment of the franchise in 2006, Marnie was recast, with Sara Paxton taking over the witchy role.”I was definitely disappointed,” Brown said. And, honestly, so was Singer, who explained, “That was not something we wanted to do. We could not come to terms that we felt were fair. We just weren’t able to. We couldn’t make the deal work.” 

    Disney Channel/Reel Fx Creative/Kobal/Shutterstock

    10. St. Helens is so proud to be the home of Halloweentown, the city has dedicated the entire month of October to the film since 1998, hosting a festival for locals and tourists alike.According to a communications officer from St. Helens, about 40,000 to 50,000 people visited in 2017.11. The original cast of Piper-Cromwells reunited for the first time since Halloweentown High at the 2017 festival.”It was nice to go back and honor Debbie. It’s such an honor that people want to come and hang out and see where it was filmed,” Brown said. “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this is what we would be doing.”12. While there are no official plans to continue the franchise, Singer said she would “like” to do a fifth movie, if the interest is there.”I’d have to get Disney Channel to get on  board, but I would like to,” she said. “I have ideas of how I would do it. There was some talk about a year and a half ago but then it didn’t happen.” 13. If it were to come to fruition, Singer envisioned “a musical,” adding, “There’s also ways to do a prequel. It’s not something I haven’t brought up before.” 

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    14. Ready for DCOM nostalgia overload? Brown, who sells Halloweentown-themed merch on Etsy, is married to Daniel Kountz, her foe in Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge. The pair reconnected in May 2016 to start working on a few Improv sketches together.”It’s been pretty fun getting to watch the fans’ reactions to it over the years,” Brown told E! News of the response to their relationship. “It cracks us up.”15. And do you remember Marnie’s love interest in Halloweentown High, Brown’s last outing as the witch? That was American Horror Story and Judy standout Finn Wittrock. “He got along with everybody right away and I know it must be interesting to join a cast that has so much history, and kind of come in and hang with us,” Brown told Seventeen of the star. “He was awesome.”

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