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Halloweentown 5 is in early development at Disney+ and Disney Channel.
Lily Houghton (Forbidden Fruits, The Body) and Ryan Koehn (Gossip Girl, The Made Whale) are developing the script for Disney. So it’s new writers for the franchise, and as far as I can tell, writers that aren’t in the wider Disney system.
Disney is mining the DCOM catalog, but it’s shocking it’s taken them this long to go back to Halloweentown. Years ago, I thought they were going to do a Halloweentown Disney+ series as a way to bring in new and nostalgic viewers every October. So it’s no surprise to see another Halloweentown in development. I actually thought the franchise had the potential to jump from Disney Channel to theatrical, whether it be live-action or animation. The franchise has enough lore and stories that it could easily be aged up or further reimagined.
The question will be if Disney uses the upcoming film as a total franchise relaunch or if they cater to the fan base of the previous entries from Disney Channel. If the latter is the case, I am curious how they approach casting. How will they balance it? Then again, this project is in early development and can go through some changes.
One thing is for certain is that the Halloweentown franchise is a leader when it comes to Halloween films.
The Halloweentown franchise has amassed 160 million hours streamed on Disney+ globally to date. The original film ranked among the top 10 most-watched Halloween movies last October.
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Zach Perilstein is the Editor-in-Chief of the Boardwalk Times
