10 Things You Didn't Know About The Movie "Hocus Pocus"

This was the first movie I remember seeing in theaters. I guess I would have been 5 years old at the time. I feel like during the month of October this movie is shown on repeat and it still never gets old. Here are some trivia facts about the movie:

1. The role of Max Dennison was originally offered to Leonardo DiCaprio, but was given to Omri Katz when DiCaprio turned it down to appear in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

2. After having locked the Sanderson sisters in the school kiln, the three kids celebrate as they walk to the park. The house shown directly behind Max and Thackery while they talk is the residential edifice used as Thora Birch's home in 1999's American Beauty.

3. During a February 10, 2008 interview on the BBC show "Breakfast", Bette Midler stated that out of all of her films, this was her favorite.

4. The three little girls who steal the witches' brooms from in front of the house are dressed as the sisters themselves: Winifred with red hair and green cape, Mary with black hair and red cape, and Sarah with blond hair and purple cape.

5. Rosie O'Donnell was originally offered the role of Mary Sanderson, but it was ultimately given to Kathy Najimy. O'Donnell claims on her blog that she turned down the offer to work with the Divine Miss M because she didn't want to be a "scary witch".

6. In this film, Sarah Jessica Parker plays a witch who was executed during the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s. While researching her family history for the show Who Do You Think You Are?, Parker was shocked to discover that her 10th great-grandmother Esther Elwell was arrested in Salem in the late 1600s for committing "sundry acts of witchcraft" and choking a neighbour to death. Esther's case never went to court, she escaped with her life and the accusation ended the Salem Witch Trials. Parker said: "It has changed everything about who I thought I was."

7. Strangely, the film was released in the Summer of 1993, rather then in the Fall.

8. Despite popular belief, Sara's song "Come Little Children" is actually a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, word for word. It was not an original song written for the film.

9. In the final scene, when Dani is crying over Binx's cat body, you can see that he happened to die right on his sister's grave.

10. The script was written as a Disney Channel Original Movie; however, it caught the eyes of a few bigger studio heads at Disney, and they felt it was strong enough to carry a good theatrical performance.

Source: imdb.com