"Hexed" Sets Sail: Disney Vacation Club Members Get a First Look at Disney Animation's 65th Film
Travelers aboard the Disney Vacation Club Member Cruise got a little extra magic on the high seas as Walt Disney Animation Studios brought an exclusive extended look at Hexed to the Disney Dream. Arriving just weeks after the film's enchanting debut at D23, the presentation folded in footage and casting reveals from that Anaheim event, giving members their first look outside the Honda Center. Hexed, the studio's 65th animated feature, opens in theaters on November 25th.
Earlier this year, directors Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand presented a first look at the film at the Annecy International Animation Festival. However, this presentation put the spotlight on the third member of the directing team, Josie Trinidad. Josie noted this wasn't her first DVC Member Cruise, having previously sailed in 2023, when she presented her Disney+ series Zootopia+, which she directed alongside Trent Correy and which went on to win the Outstanding Children's or Young Teen Animated Series award at the Children's & Family Emmys.
Like her fellow directors, Josie Trinidad began at Disney Animation as a story artist, part of the team that creates early storyboards behind some of the studio's most iconic moments. She recalled that one of the first sequences she boarded was Tiana's "Almost There" number in The Princess and the Frog, her first film at the studio and a dream-come-true chance to work with her heroes, directors Ron Clements and John Musker.
At the center of Hexed is Billie, an opinionated, scrappy young woman stuck in a world of rules and limitations, voiced by Hailee Steinfeld. Her mother, Alice, a single mom working a soul-crushing office job to support her daughter, is voiced by Rashida Jones. The character team, led by heads of animation Michael Franceschi and Louis Jones, is drawing heavily on the Milt Kahl era of design, with exaggerated, 101 Dalmatians-flavored proportions that leave plenty of room for physical comedy. Production designer Lorelay Bové (Encanto, Wreck-It Ralph, The Princess and the Frog, Big Hero 6) is creating the visuals for the world of Hexe.
Josie Trinidad introduced several clips from the film in various stages of completion, starting with a work-in-progress prologue. Hexed opens 15 years before the main story, when a baby Billie discovers the magic within her and accidentally tears open a portal to another realm. Trinidad shared a sweet bit of behind-the-scenes trivia from the prologue footage: one of the film's editors, Dylan, recorded the delighted cackles of one-year-old Billie one night using his own young daughter.
Fifteen years later, Billie chafes against a rigid life of school uniforms and rules, straining her relationship with her mom, though she's always honored the one rule that matters most: never remove the bracelet given to her as a baby. That holds until a very bad day. Hauled into the principal's office over a stolen school mascot and facing expulsion, Billie snatches his laptop, bolts for the bathroom to destroy the evidence, and snaps the bracelet on a hook, sending her long-dormant magic haywire.
Rattled and certain more danger is coming, Alice prepares to skip town. But Billie has now glimpsed her own magic, and its draw is undeniable. Not in control of her powers, she opens a portal of her own and steps through into Hexe, a safe haven for witches where nature and magic intertwine. She's greeted by a wry pair of enchanted objects, the magical book Elias Quire (Stephen Fry) and the enchanted pen Ms. Quill (Tracey Ullman), who put her through a tongue-in-cheek questionnaire before admitting her.
Just as Billie realizes this might be exactly where she belongs, Alice turns up, and the local magical police promptly capture her, leaving Billie to wonder how her mother got there and what the authorities want with her. On her own and knowing next to nothing about magic, Billie seeks out help in the most dangerous corner of the realm, gaining a companion along the way: Bucket, a walking enchanted cauldron who behaves like a loyal, rideable dog, shown in a 2D test by Tyler Pacana.
That quest leads her to Beef Roger Crummchuk, a surly, three-eyed cat sage who lives alone in a swamp-bound trailer stuffed with potions and trinkets, a magical hoarder's paradise. A stretchy, boundless character who can pop his own head off, Beef Roger becomes Billie's reluctant Yoda. Together they hit the road to rescue Alice, and as the lessons continue and the magic grows wilder, the farther they travel from the city, Billie edges closer to the family secrets tied to her mother's past that may hold the key to her full potential.
The presentation closed with the sizzle piece Disney Animation first unveiled at D23, which carried the film's newest casting news. Walton Goggins voices Beef Roger Crummchuk, and two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster joins as the film's villain, a sinister witch queen named Queen Celeste. The footage teased Celeste on the hunt for Billie, declaring her "no ordinary child,” a thread that ties directly into the mother-daughter mysteries at the film's core.
Stay tuned for more news about Hexed as more secrets are revealed. Disney Animation's 65th feature casts its spell in theaters on November 25th.