Sam Richardson, Veep’s erstwhile Richard Splett, is everywhere lately. From mainstream blockbusters like The Tomorrow War to indie horror-comedies like Werewolves Within, from Ted Lasso to—most importantly—I Think You Should Leave, Sam Richardson is everyone’s favorite funny scene stealer. The latest scenes he will steal will be in Hocus Pocus 2, the Disney+-bound sequel to 1993’s spooky season classic Hocus Pocus. Once upon a time, this was going to be a Disney Channel remake, but somebody somewhere realized no one wanted that, and Hocus Pocus 2 will bring back Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy as the witchy Sanderson sisters. Nostalgia-driven sequels are not uniformly excellent, and there is a good chance this will suck, but at least it’s not a remake, and at least director Anne Fletcher has the good sense to cast someone like Sam Richardson. I am 37% more likely to watch something if Richardson is in it.
Thora Birch has been teasing her involvement in the sequel, suggesting we’ll see a grown-up Dani:
I would really like to check in on Dani and see how she turned out after having a crush on a cat. Is Sam Richardson playing her therapist? Richardson playing a therapist who helps a person with a crush on a cat sounds like a sketch from I Think You Should Leave, because every sketch from ITYSL is best described by a random string of words that make no sense, like “the tables are her job” and “He’s no Roy Donk”. One of my biggest concerns about a Hocus Pocus sequel is that Disney has become too sanitized to let it be as weird as the original is. Hocus Pocus has a deep vein of strange, which is why it has stuck around in the culture for so long. If they let Sam Richardson bring even a fraction of his ITYSL chaos energy to the sequel, though, Hocus Pocus 2 might find its own well of odd. And if you don’t know what Richardson’s ITYSL chaos energy is like, you can check it out below. Just the most committed performer to the wildest premise.
Attached - Sam at the Eternals premiere the other day in LA.
