How Focus Pocus 2 plans to honor the original with a new story

Focus poke 2 will not lose its magic.

The sequel, due out this fall on Disney, will pay homage to the first film that captivated audiences nearly 30 years ago.

“How to capture nostalgia [for the original]?” the director Anne Fletcher said in an interview with TV Guide. “Because that’s what people love.”

So, how loyal will the sequel be to the beloved cult classic, playing the main role Bette Midler, Katie Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker like the sanderson sisters? Fletcher said she looked back to the beginning of the story — to very beginning.

“We provide [origin story] to the witches,” she explained. Fans have now traveled back in time to the opening of the original in 1693, where the Sanderson sisters drain the life force from a little girl, Emily, to become young again.

While the myth will fill in some of the gaps in the Sandersons’ history, the sequel will focus on three high school girls from Salem, Massachusetts, who accidentally call the sisters to the present day. And yes, having three main characters (performer Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobedo and Lily Buckingham) to draw a parallel with the Sanderson sisters was intentional.

“At the end of the day,” Fletcher said, “this movie is about sisterhood.”