blackrose4242 t1_iugovf4 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:40 AM

Reply to comment by doesaxlhaveajack in ‘Halloweentown’ star Kimberly J. Brown shares movie’s alternative ending by MarielaGorman

I’m not sure if your being sarcastic or not, but I’m pretty that’s exactly why they dropped Kim. They wanted a “conventionally pretty blond”. Sara Paxton wasn’t a newbie, either, doing pretty well as the lead in Aquamarine. Disney did a dumb thing to sell a final movie and in their eyes, “it paid off”.

doesaxlhaveajack t1_iugpdff wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:46 AM

I wasn’t being sarcastic. Kim was an appealing normal looking kid and I was surprised to see how naturally pretty she is as an adult, simply because I hadn’t seen her in anything since she was in the awkward phase we all go through. But even if she were a hag…she’s Marnie.

PEPESILVIAisNIGHTMAN t1_iuh20dr wrote on October 31, 2022 at 7:45 AM

That is not the reason why Kimberly was dropped. Disney agreed to give her a producer credit and it went to her head. She was fired after demanding the script be rewritten. (This is information I learned from one of the Halloweentown producers that I know)

locelot t1_iuh9mv4 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 9:44 AM

The creator of HalloweenTowen Sheri Singer and KJB sat down and did an interview together and reading through the lines it seems like they always wanted a blonde actress and jumped at the chance of a recast:

Singer: She came in and she wasn't who we had visually pictured, but she was the role. She blew everyone else away. She was great.

Brown: It was so exciting when I found out I got it because I remember loving the script and loving the idea of playing a teenage witch. And then hearing Debbie Reynolds was signed onto it, it was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to play Debbie Reynolds' granddaughter!

Singer: Debbie was coming in with the blonde look and Judith [Hoag] was reddish blonde, so I thought it would maybe be a lighter girl. Of course, this is so politically incorrect today, but they were all related…I had just envisioned a Blondie. But she came in and she was it.

—

About the recast:

Singer: It was not something we wanted to do. We could not come to terms that we felt were fair. We just weren't able to. We couldn't make the deal work. That was why and we didn't want to not do it. I know people didn't like it, but it's not like people haven't been recast before. I always was sorry. That's how it went.

—

enews interview source

PEPESILVIAisNIGHTMAN t1_iuhcknf wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:25 AM

I hadn’t read that interview before, but it’s bizarre to think the producer I know would lie in such a slanderous way about what happened. They were my mentor for a few years and always wonderful about answering my questions about their days at Disney.