#’The Witches’ trailer sees Anne Hathaway as Grand High Witch in remake

This Grand High Witch is a devil — and looks like she wears Prada.

The trailer for the remake of “The Witches,” the beloved 1990 dark comedy about a convention for witches, has dropped, giving a first look at the updated tale directed by Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis (“Forrest Gump,” “Back to the Future”).

The star-studded cast includes Oscar winners Anne Hathaway (“Les Misérables,” “The Devil Wears Prada”) and Octavia Spencer (“The Help,” “The Shape of Water”), Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci (“The Lovely Bones,” “The Hunger Games”), Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth (“Glee,” “BoJack Horseman”) and comedy legend Chris Rock.

Hathaway, 37, assumes the role of the Grand High Witch, the part Anjelica Huston played in the original, which required her to spend two hours in the makeup chair daily before shooting, according to a 1990 Los Angeles Times article. In order to turn former supermodel Huston, then just 30 years old, into “the most extreme hag of a witch you’ve ever seen” for the first Warner Bros. film, the leader of the movie’s makeup team said it was an “unpleasant experience” for the actress, now 69, as she had to be fully covered in latex as part of her transformation.

But in the just-released trailer, it’s quite the opposite for Hathaway, who is mostly glammed up, wearing the fanciest of finery. She’s seen showing the witch’s true colors only for a brief moment, taking off her wig and her skin horrifically morphing as seen in a hand mirror.

However, “Atlanta” child star Jahzir Kadeem Bruno, who plays the boy taking on the coven, gets a whole lot of CGI transformation in the trailer. The youngster, after ratting on the witches to his grandma, played by Spencer, is turned into a mouse by Hathaway using a special potion. It’s all part of the witches’ plan to rid the world of children — their ultimate enemy — a plot cooked up by famed novelist Roald Dahl in his 1983 graphic novel that inspired the films. While the Grand High Witch reigns supreme, she’s no match for Spencer and her grandson, now a mouse, who take on the witches to foil their “filthy evil plot” with a dash of bravery and a whole lot of love.

“The Witches” will drop on HBO’s streaming platform, HBO Max, on Oct. 22 and will hit theaters Oct. 28.