Halloween is (still) cool! After taking over the spooky season with its debut in 1998, Halloweentown has continued to provide a place for fans to celebrate the holiday over the years.
The Disney Channel original movie followed Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) and her siblings as they found out that they belong to a family of witches. After her grandmother Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) takes her to Halloweentown, Marnie quickly learns on her 13th birthday that she has to fight against the evil that is threatening to take over the entire world.
Fans of the iconic movie franchise weren’t the only ones keeping their love for Halloweentown alive, as the cast has attended many events in honor of the film.
“The fam bam is back together!” Brown captioned a sweet Instagram photo of her, Emily Roeske (Sophie), Joey Zimmerman (Dylan) and Judith Hoag (Gwen) at an annual Spirit of Halloweentown festival in St. Helen, Oregon, where the first movie was originally filmed, in 2017.
Over the years, Brown not only reconnected with people who loved the project, she also started dating her costar Daniel Kountz (Kal), who appeared in the 2001 sequel Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge.
“We’ve kept in touch over the years since we wrapped the second movie, and we’ve been friends on social media for a while. We hadn’t seen each other in a bit, and I wanted him to be in some of my original comedy sessions that I shoot for my YouTube channel,” Brown told Bustle in 2017 about forming a bond with Kountz years after working together.
The Guiding Light alum added: “I ended up directing a short film about where Kal could be now, and [Daniel] graciously starred in it with some of my other friends from Second City where I’ve been studying improv for a while. We shot that and that stuff on my YouTube channel kind of continued. It just naturally and very unexpectedly grew from that.”
Brown noted that the response from the Halloweentown fans has been “amazing.”
“There’s a fine line with being in the public eye and the media and my personal life, but it’s been pretty funny to watch the fans’ responses,” she shared at the time.
Three years later, the Maryland native detailed the lines that viewers have enjoyed repeating to her after finding out that Marnie and Kal are together in real life.
“People always love the … ‘If witches were all as pretty as you, they’d have a better reputation,’” Brown told the Los Angeles Times in October 2020. “And then there’s, ‘Meeting you was everything I hoped it would be,’ and that kind of thing. … Before I discover that he’s evil, obviously.”
Kountz, who transitioned into real estate after starring in the Halloweentown franchise, revealed that he still gets recognized to this day.
“A lot of [fans] say, ‘I can’t believe you’re with Marnie now. Didn’t she learn from her past mistakes?’ Funny things like that, which kind of crack me up,” Kountz added.
During the 2020 interview, Brown revealed one of the most important lessons that she learned from Reynolds, who died in 2016, when it came to appreciating their audience.
“That was something that was always very important to her,” Brown recalled. “She really taught me what a gift it is to be in that position to be able to make people happy. … That always has stuck with me.”
The Rose Red star admitted that her relationship with the Golden Globe nominee greatly reflected their on screen bond.
“[I] tried to soak up as much time with her as I could because she became another grandmother to me,” Brown shared with the L.A. Times. “So much of their relationship on screen mirrored what our relationship was in real life, so I’m grateful for that time I got with her.”
Keep scrolling for a look at where the Halloweentown cast is now:
Source: Source: US MAGAZINE
