The Witches Skipping Theaters and Heading to HBO Max

The Witches are coming to your living room this Halloween season! Back to the Future director [...]

By Charlie Ridgely

The Witches are coming to your living room this Halloween season! Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis recently adapted Roald Dahl's The Witches for the big screen, with Anne Hathaway playing the lead role. The film was pulled from its theatrical release earlier this year, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, but is now being sent directly to the HBO Max streaming service. WarnerMedia announced on Friday morning that The Witches would be making its long-awaited debut on HBO Max on October 22nd.

This premiere date is just a couple of weeks after the original theatrical release date for The Witches, which was supposed to take place on October 9th. Following this debut, The Witches will head into theaters in international markets on October 28th.

"This Halloween season, bring the big screen home," reads the announcement tweet from HBO Max. "The Witches is coming exclusively to HBO Max on October 22!"

The original Dahl novel was published in 1983 and it was followed by a live-action adaptation in 1990, which starred Anjelica Huston and Rowan Atkinson. In addition to Hathaway, this new take on The Witches stars Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, and Chris Rock. Zemeckis co-wrote the screenplay alongside Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and legendary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. The film is produced by Zemeckis, del Toro, Jack Rapke, Alfonso Cuaron, and Luke Kelly.

You can check out the official synopsis for The Witches below.

"The Witches tells the darkly humorous and heartwarming tale of a young orphaned boy (Jahzir Kadeem Bruno) who, in late 1967, goes to live with his loving Grandma (Octavia 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."

Are you looking forward to checking out The Witches on HBO Max later this month? Let us know in the comments!

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