This week, we heard a rumor that Disney is developing a sequel to everyone’s favorite ’90s Halloween cult classic Hocus Pocus, tentatively titled Hocus Pocus 2: Rise of the Elderwitch. This, obviously, is an idea we are 100% behind, and the vague promise of the project got us to thinking about which kids movies from the ’90s we’d actually like to watch the sequels to now, as our grown up selves. Not that there wouldn’t obviously be an enormous camp factor regardless of the film, but still. Obviously, we’ve stayed away from movies that already have sequels to their name, but otherwise, we let our little nostalgic hearts run wild. Click through to see which ’90s kids movies we think deserve sequels, and let us know which ones you’d race to the theaters for in the comments!
Hocus Pocus
Hocus Pocus was a special movie — on the surface, it was a kind of scary, kind of campy romp, but it was chock full of the kind of sly one liners and deep dark themes that make us keep plopping down in front of it when it’s inevitably rerun every Halloween. From the supposed title, we’re probably looking at the same premise — accidentally resurrected witches in Salem who want to feed on kids’ life forces — but a whole new cast. Fine with us, as long as the sequel maintains the snarky-silly appeal of the first. And a cameo from Thora Birch.
Harriet the Spy
If nosy, book-smart, curious-as-hell Harriet was eleven when this movie was released in 1996, she’d be about 27 now, and man, are we interested in where her life has gone. Harriet in high school! Harriet in college! Harriet struggling to make it as a writer and totally spying on her roommates in her first NYC apartment! Sidebar: this would give Georgina a chance to go away and be reincarnated as something way better. Too busy filming the entire Harriet the Spy life story to bother with Gossip Girl.
Heavyweights
Long before he was Dodgeball‘s White Goodman, Ben Stiller was the equally fitness-crazed (and equally sinister) Tony Perkis in the Judd Apatow-penned Heavyweights. Though he may have ended up selling healing crystals door-to-door, we never found out the fate of fat kids Gerry, Josh and Roy. We bet they became counselors at Camp Hope when they grew up. We bet there were hijinks. We want to see them.
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
There are already a billion Robin Hood movies and TV shows, so why not one more, as only the bonkers, super meta, totally irreverent Mel Brooks can do it? After all, man’s got an EGOT. Of course, the rapping narration we’ve come to expect would also be required in the sequel. I said, hey nonny nonny and a ho ho ho.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Okay, you’re right. What we’re envisioning here wouldn’t really be a sequel to this sort of terrible film, but a movie version of Joss Whedon’s cult television show. But we could call it a sequel, because it would come after. And it would have to be both written and directed by Whedon. And, hey, Sarah Michelle Gellar still looks young enough, right? Please?
Mrs. Doubtfire
There actually was almost a sequel to this classic Robin Williams romp, but it was scrapped in 2006 for lack of a decent script. Come on, struggling screenwriters. We know one of you out there, working in a coffee shop, is capable of writing a great Mrs. Doubtfire sequel for the greater good. It can’t be that hard, right?
The Little Rascals
The Little Rascals as teenagers! Don’t tell us you don’t want to see what kind of nonsense they get into once they’ve discovered sex and alcohol.
Now and Then
Oft referred to as the lady equivalent of Stand by Me, this movie already has a sort of meta-sequel component — it flashes back and forth between a group of friends meeting up as adults and their adventures as children (Christina Ricci grows up to be Rosie O’Donnell — hilarious). But we loved the group dynamic so much that we’d definitely watch a sequel about the adventures of the children of the women they grew up to be. Just to extend the metaphor a little further. And… a cameo from Thora Birch.
The Borrowers
We don’t know. We just loved this movie so much that we’d be keen to watch more of it. Mean Ocious P. Potter (John Goodman!) gets out of jail and exacts his revenge on a new family of Borrowers? Could be pretty charming.
Space Jam
We feel that the cartoon/live action mix a technology that has not been fully explored, don’t you? LeBron? Kobe? Carmelo? Jeremy Lin? WHO WILL DO THIS?