Max is a 15-year-old (according to the shooting script) teenager with brown hair and green eyes. He has fair skin and is seen throughout the film, first wearing a tie-dye shirt (much to his teacher Miss Olin's amusement) to wearing a brown jacket with a blue shirt and jeans.
As part of a roundtable interview with the original Hocus Pocus cast published Wednesday, Katz, 46, told Entertainment Weekly he was high from cannabis use while filming scenes for the family film. "That was at an age where I started experimenting with cannabis," Katz, who was 16 at the time of filming, told EW.
In the almost 30 years since “Hocus Pocus” first came out, a fan theory has emerged, and slowly gained steam above all others. The notion is that Allison, Max Dennison's (Omri Katz) love interest in the movie played by Vinessa Shaw, was herself a witch, tasked with protecting Salem with her own good magic.
Dani is a headstrong eight-year-old girl who has no qualms about screaming like a banshee when Max refuses to take her trick-or-treating or making fun of him in public, but she has a good heart and does not hesitate to defend him from neighborhood bullies or the Sanderson sisters.
Just like Sean, Omri was only a teen (17 years old to be exact) when he was cast as Max Dennison in Hocus Pocus. Even though it seems early for an actor to start his career, Omri actually started acting when he was seven as John Ross Ewing in the TV series Dallas.
Every Time Max Dennison Was Called A Virgin (Hocus Pocus)
Has it been 29 years since Hocus Pocus?
It's been 29 years since someone lit the Black Flame Candle and resurrected the 17th-century sisters, and they are looking for revenge. Now it is up to three high-school students to stop the ravenous witches from wreaking a new kind of havoc on Salem before dawn on All Hallow's Eve.
Disney boss Sean Bailey confirmed that Hocus Pocus 3 was in the works in June 2023, following the long-awaited sequel being a hit on the streaming service. Hocus Pocus 2's director, Anne Fletcher, is returning for the new movie, according to TheWrap.
Although Birch wasn't included in the sequel, she says “there were three options we had for how to bring Dani back, all of which I was excited by.” However, “by the time they got around to filming, I was already on something else,” she continues, explaining that she was working on another project.
SJP was around 28 when she first starred as Sarah in Hocus Pocus. Before the movie, she'd starred in films such as Footloose, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and Honeymoon in Vegas. Hocus Pocus came five years before she became a household name in series Sex and the City.
Of all the “Hocus Pocus” stars, Omri Katz is the only one who largely left Hollywood after starring in the film. Today, he runs a cannabis brand, but has noted that he'd be open to returning for future “Hocus Pocus” projects.
The actor, who plays Max Dennison in the 1993 Halloween movie, admitted to being high while acting, telling Entertainment Weekly, “That was at an age where I started experimenting with cannabis. Let's just say some of those scenes, I was having a good old time. I don't exactly remember which scene.”
Leonardo DiCaprio had the chance to play the lead role of Max Dennison in 1993 cult classic fantasy comedy movie Hocus Pocus, but ultimately turned it down.
Who was originally supposed to play Max in Hocus Pocus?
Hocus Pocus director Kenny Ortega tells EW that his casting agents sent the future Titanic and Killers of the Flower Moon superstar actor in to read for the role of Max — which eventually went to Omri Katz — in the 1993 Disney classic, but that his team told him DiCaprio wouldn't be able to take the part.
Billy greatly despises Winifred, but he did have a relationship with her when he was alive because they shared one kiss. He put up with it until he is fed up with her obsession and fell in love with her youngest sister Sarah.
Hocus Pocus was no instant success—due in part, perhaps, to its mid-July theatrical release. (There was talk that Disney didn't want the film to compete with its other Halloween movie that year, The Nightmare Before Christmas, which came out in mid-October.) The now-favorite was, by all accounts, a box office flop.
CNN reported that the Sanderson sisters are fictional characters. There were not three sisters named Winifred, Sarah and Mary who were executed for practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.
Max, Dani, and Allison, however, don't have any impact on Hocus Pocus 2. None of the three original characters return for cameos, with director Anne Fletcher citing their absence as due to difficulties in organically integrating them into the story.
Though original Hocus Pocus actress Thora Birch didn't reprise her beloved role as Dani in Hocus Pocus 2, the sequel stars who took the reins from the 1993 film's OG roster of teens tell EW what might've happened if a grown-up version of her character appeared in director Anne Fletcher's film as first planned.
Original Hocus Pocus stars Omri Katz and Vinessa Shaw weren't in Hocus Pocus 2, but screenwriter Jen D'Angelo is confident their characters are living happy lives free from the grasp of the Sanderson Sisters.
It turns out Isabella is the descendant of Elizabeth, the daughter of a fourth, secret Sanderson sister, and she discovers later in the book that she also has magical abilities, similar to Becca in "Hocus Pocus 2."
The Hocus Pocus 3 plot has yet to be revealed, but the story can be easily guessed based on the last film. When Winifred chooses to return to her sisters at the end of Hocus Pocus 2, the special spellbook, referred to as "Book," finds new ownership in Becca, setting up the Hocus Pocus 3 story.
In Walt Disney Animation Studios' all-new epic animated musical, Moana 2, three years since her first voyage, Moana is on an expansive journey in search of people beyond the shores of Motunui. Moana 2 opens in theaters on Nov. 27, 2024.
