Return to Halloweentown turns 20 this year. The fourth and final film in Disney Channel's Halloweentown series sends Marnie Piper off to Witch University, where a secret society and a decades old conspiracy threaten to turn her magic against her.
What most people actually remember is not the plot. Kimberly J. Brown had played Marnie in all three previous films, and by her own account was already in talks to return and had cleared her schedule for the shoot when Disney decided to recast the role with Sara Paxton instead. Brown has said she was never given a clear reason why, though a pay disagreement between the studio and her family is the explanation that has stuck around the longest.
The swap landed badly with the franchise's built in audience, who had grown up with Brown in the role across nearly a decade of Halloween specials, and it is the reason this entry gets singled out from the other three whenever the series comes up.
Twenty years on, Return to Halloweentown is still worth revisiting, if only to see how much a single casting decision can define a film's reputation independent of anything on screen.
