Spooky season surprise! A fifth “Halloweentown” movie is in early development at Disney Channel and Disney+ 20 years after the fourth installment, TheWrap can reveal exclusively.
Lily Houghton and Ryan Koehn are developing the script for Disney, based on the characters created by Paul Bernbaum, who wrote the original 1998 film.
Additional details are still under wraps. It is unclear whether previous cast members like Kimberly J. Brown or Sara Paxton will return to lead the franchise. The “Aquamarine” star replaced Brown as Marnie Piper in the 2006 film “Return to Halloweentown.”
Houghton wrote the screenplay for horror comedy “Forbidden Fruits,” which premiered in theaters earlier this year, starring Lili Reinhart and Lola Tung. The writer also produced Netflix’s upcoming YA horror series “The Body” set to premiere next month.
Koehn served as a staff writer on the “Gossip Girl” reboot from 2021 to 2023. His other writing credits include thriller film “The Mad Whale,” comedic TV movie “Homeschooled” and crime drama “As Night Comes.”
The “Halloweentown” franchise has amassed 160 million hours streamed on Disney+ globally to date, with the original film ranking among the top 10 most-watched Halloween movies last October.
The Disney Channel film franchise debuted in 1998 with “Halloweentown.” The first film follows 13-year-old Marnie Piper as she discovers that she descends from a line of powerful witches and must begin her magical training before her powers vanish forever.
Brown played Marnie in the first three films: “Halloweentown,” “Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge” (2001) and “Halloweentown High” (2004).
The fourth movie “Return to Halloweentown” saw Paxton overtake the role of Marnie and followed her as an 18-year-old witch as she attended Witch University in Halloweentown with her brother Dylan.
The upcoming film would join Disney’s Halloween collection, which includes “Hocus Pocus,” “Twitches” and “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
All of the “Halloweentown” films are available to stream on Disney+.
