With principal photography now underway, director Robert Zemeckis’ Roald Dahl adaptation The Witches has made two new additions to its cast in Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) and Chris Rock (Grown Ups), joining the previously announced Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables), Octavia Spencer (The Help) and newcomers Jahzir Kadeem Bruno and Codie-Lei Eastick.
The official synopsis for the reimagining of the classic children’s book reads:
“The Witches tells the darkly humorous and heartwarming tale of a young orphaned boy (Bruno) who, in late 1967, goes to live with his loving Grandma (Spencer) in the rural Alabama town of Demopolis. The boy and his grandmother come across some deceptively glamorous but thoroughly diabolical witches, so Grandma wisely whisks our young hero away to an opulent seaside resort. Regrettably, they arrive at precisely the same time that the world’s Grand High Witch (Hathaway) has gathered her fellow cronies from around the globe—undercover—to carry out her nefarious plans.”
The Witches is set for release on October 16th 2020, with Zemeckis directing from a script he’s written with Kenya Barris (Black-ish), from an earlier draft by Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water).