Disney is continuing its modern trend of reinventing fairy tales with Hexed, the new Animated Classic that’s set for release at Thanksgiving. Starring Hailee Steinfeld as Billie – an impulsive and unconventional teenage girl, and Rashida Jones as her mother, Alice – Hexed is the latest modern Disney princess story to feature a magically powered lead wrestling with her powers (like Frozen, Moana, and in an inverted manner, Encanto).
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The cast also includes Stephen Fry and Tracey Ullman, who play a talking spellbook called Elias Quire, and a talking pen called Mrs Quill respectively. Hexed is set for release on November 25, just in time for the lucrative Thanksgiving family boost for the box office and following the trend of Disney’s release strategy for some of the most recent animated movies, like Moana 2. Here’s the trailer:
Can Hexed Capture the Frozen Magic Again?
Disney’s recent track record on the animated Classics front has been somewhat uneven. There are huge box office numbers in the Frozen franchise – which will return for a third outing over Thanksgiving 2027 – and Zootopia, which earned more than $1.8 billion at the global box office, and Moana 2 posted over a billion despite rougher critical reactions. They all prove the value of established IPs, which should come as no surprise, but the originals that released around those movies fared less well.
Encanto struggled to $260m, before grabbing a far bigger second life on Disney+, Strange World lost more than $100m against its reported production budget, and despite presenting as a meta celebration of all things Disney, Wish only made $250m. All of this reduction of movies to box office performance feels vulgar, of course, but it’s a reality facing particularly original IPs in this ecosystem. And it’s more likely that Hexed sits alongside the second group by type than the first, which is no reflection of the quality of any of them. And speaking of quality, it does look great – there’s an old-school feel to the fairy tale world Billie unlocks when she realizes the extent of her powers, and the magic book and talking quill played by Fry and Ullman is definitely a throwback to older school Disney.
Disney also released a new poster for Hexed:
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