Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Hocus Pocus arrived from Walt Disney Pictures in the summer of 1993, a modestly budgeted Halloween comedy that did not set the box office alight on release. Directed by Kenny Ortega and led by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson sisters, it found its true audience years later through home video and annual cable rotation, becoming a seasonal fixture for generations of viewers. Its afterlife turned a minor studio release into a genuine cult touchstone, prized now for nostalgia as much as for its cast.
This piece captures the opening title card, the frame where the film announces itself before any character or plot unfolds. Such a cell marks a threshold moment: the transition from studio logo to story, often paired with the production's chosen typography and mood-setting music cue. For collectors, title cards hold particular value because they represent the film's identity in its purest form, unattached to a specific scene, offering a clean entry point into the Hocus Pocus mythology for anyone building a themed run of Halloween-era Disney artifacts.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Hocus Pocus (1993).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges look clean with no torn or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along the bottom edge beside the perforations, appearing as a dual-bilateral (two-track) white waveform pattern.
Edge print
Edge print reads mirrored/reversed along the strip edges; legible characters are not fully resolvable in this capture beyond confirming text and numeric codes are present.
Base & colour
Base appears dark/dense as expected for a projected colour print; the dye image shows purple and white title graphics with no obvious red shift or fading visible.
Projection history
No splices, cue marks or prominent scratches are visible in this capture.
Picture
Positive image; all three frames show the same title-card graphic, consistent with a title sequence held on multiple frames, matching the film on record.
Era check
A dual-bilateral variable-area optical track alongside standard 35mm four-perforation framing is consistent with a 1993 theatrical release print era, before DTS timecode strips became universal.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000063365
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
