‘Halloweentown’ Star Reveals Disappointment After Being Recast in Sequel

With Halloween just around the corner, people are returning to the spooky classics In order to get In the holiday spirit. One that millennials tend to return to is the Disney Channel Original Halloweentown and its sequels, all of which are streaming on Disney+. Starring Debbie Reynolds and Kimberly J. Brown, Halloweentown came out in 1998 and told the story of Marnie Piper, a young girl who finds out that she is secretly a witch.

Halloweentown ended up spawning three sequels, but fans were crestfallen when the role of Marnie was recast in the final installment Return to Halloweentown, replacing Brown with actress Sara Paxton. Bustle revisited that decision, pointing to a 2013 YouTube video from Brown where she revealed that she was disappointed not to be invited back for the fourth film and that the scheduling conflict claims were untrue. While It was originally thought that she was busy filming the horror film Big Bad Wolf, Brown shut that down, saying she was “not really sure” why she was recast after three films.

“Some people said that they heard that I was working on something, which was not the case at the time,” Brown explained. “I was available and ready to do it and had talked to them about possibly doing it, but Disney decided to go in a different direction and recast the role. So that’s really all I know about the situation.”

Despite the unfortunate ending, Brown still has a lot of love for the franchise and is even dating her Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge costar Daniel Kountz. “I love Marnie and everything that she stood for, so I’m really happy when people tell me how much she meant to them,” Brown told MTV in 2015. “Marnie always knew there was something different about her, and when she did find out about her magic, she wanted to know everything she could and really fully live in that and be herself. She was just always really cool in that way. I admired her determination and her sense of humor and her willingness to take on her family legacy. Who wouldn’t want fly a broom and make things magically appear?… I loved that we got to see her figure out how to be a teenager but also how to be a witch at the same time.”