The Craft reboot has set its main cast. The latest 1990’s era film to be upgraded for a new generation, The Craft was a surprise hit when it was initially released back in 1996. Since then, it's enjoyed mostly cult status, but a reboot could change that.
The original film starred the likes of Scream and Party of Five star Neve Campbell, as well as Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney and Rachel True as a group of high school outcasts who begin experimenting with witchcraft. As the film progresses, the powers that the group unleash begin to have negative impacts on the girls lives, and it isn’t long before everything falls apart for the four dilettante witches. As far as female-led films went, The Craft was somewhat ahead of its time, although the decade did experience a slight trend of female-led films, with efforts such as Silence of the Lambs, Bad Girls, and The River Wild, to name but a few. Today, with diversity a more pressing issue for Hollywood, more lead roles are opening up for women, meaning that the timing seemed just right to bring The Craft back.
Though The Craft reboot was announced in 2015, it’s taken four years for the production to find its way to the casting stage. Back in June we heard that Pacific Rim: Uprising star Cailee Spaeny was cast as the film’s first witch and now, thanks to THR, official word has arrived regarding the film’s main cast. Completing the reboot’s coven are Gideon Adlon (The Society), Lovie Simone (Greenleaf), and up and coming transgender star, Zoey Luna (Pose).
From the relatively early sound of things, The Craft reboot will follow much the same storyline as its predecessor, with Hannah (Spaeny) befriending three other fellow outcasts at her high school. The group begin to experiment with witchcraft, and before they know it, their worlds are forever altered. The film will be written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, who’s something of a newcomer to Hollywood herself, having only directed one feature film so far in 2017’s Band Aid. That being said, Lister-Jones has held down a successful career as an actress, with a variety of roles including a spot on the popular CBS comedy Life in Pieces.
Whether or not The Craft reboot can recapture some of the magic that made it such a hit in 1996 remains to be seen, but at present, it looks as though the new film will offer further insight into the changing face of Hollywood. While valid arguments can be made that things aren’t changing fast enough, a female-led production like The Craft not only has a good chance of being a hit, but it also offers the opportunity to escape the questionable recent Hollywood trend of simply taking films made popular by men, and replacing their casts with women.
Source: THR