Iconic Disney Channel Movie Series Returning for New Installment

Just in time for spooky season, Halloweentown is making a comeback.

Entertainment Weekly recently reported that the Disney Channel classic is in development for a fifth installment of the franchise, appropriately titled, Halloweentown 5. The news comes nearly 30 years after the original film debuted on Disney in October 1998.

Three years later, Disney Channel released a sequel, Halloween II: Kalabar’s Revenge. Halloween High premiered three years after that, and then a fourth movie, Return to Halloweentown, hit screens in 2006. 

In the 1998 original, character Marnie Piper, on her birthday, finds out that she is a witch and comes from a family of witches. Marnie and her siblings must navigate through their town, Halloweentown, where ghosts, curses and other scary surprises await them. Marnie also must begin magical training or risk losing her special powers forever. Similar storylines accompanied the other films in the franchise.

Actress Kimberly J. Brown was cast as Marine in the first three films and Sara Paxton played Marnie in 2006’s Return to Halloweentown. Prior to her 2016 passing, Debbie Reynolds (who plays the role of the Piper crew’s grandma, Aggie Cromwell) was one of three actors to have appeared in each of the franchise’s movies. Judith Hoag and Joey Zimmerman, who were cast in the roles of Marnie’s siblings, are the others.

Brown went on to marry one of the cast members, Daniel Kountz, from the movie’s sequel.

All four movies in the Halloweentown franchise are currently available on Disney+. The movie franchise, per Entertainment Weekly, has amassed 160 million streams on Disney+.  

The fifth installment of Halloweentown will be written by Lily Houghton and Ryan Koehn (Gossip Girl). Filming and release dates, nor casting, have been announced, though Brown would welcome the opportunity to reprise her role from the first three films.

Earlier this fall, Brown told PEOPLE, “I’m down to do another one. The ball’s in their court.”