"We almost had Thora Birch," Escobedo said. "I remember talking to Anne [Fletcher, the director] about it being a thing where she was our teacher, and we went to her for help."
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Escobedo added that in the original version of the script, Gilbert (Sam Richardson), a new character who runs a magic shop in the Sanderson sisters' old house, wasn't part of the story. Instead, the mentor role would have been played by Birch, according to Escobedo's costar Lilia Buckingham.
Earlier this year, EW reported that Birch was approached to play an adult version of Dani but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts with Netflix's "Wednesday" series, which she didn't end up starring in.
"I was working on something else when they were filming," the 40-year-old actor said ahead of the sequel's premiere. "Otherwise I was definitely going to be there on set with the girls. I can't wait to see what they do with it. I know they're taking a completely different, fresh approach, so I'm excited."
However, none of the child actors who played the protagonists Max (Omri Katz), Dani (Birch), and Allison (Vinessa Shaw), make an appearance in the sequel.
Fletcher told Entertainment Weekly that she found it "very difficult" to bring all the original actors back.
"We wanted to weave in all of the people that the fans loved, and when you sat back with all the ingredients and story, you're like, 'How do we make this work?'" Fletcher said. "People would say, 'They could be in the background!' And I'm like, really? You're going to put the leads of the first movie in the background and be satisfied? You're not going to be satisfied, you're going to be angry."
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