Darktown: Rise of the Witches

***Darktown: Rise of the Witches*** is a 2002 American animated supernatural dark fantasy action-adventure film directed by series creators Jessica Newman and Brad Bird based on the animated series *Tales in the Darktown*. The film features the voices of Candi Milo, E.G. Daily, Tress MacNeille, Scott Menville, Charlie Adler, B.J. Ward, Tony Jay and Frank Welker reprising their roles from the series along with newcomers Desirée Goyette, Jason Marsden, Willem Dafoe, Jodi Benson, Dan Aykroyd, with Richard Kind and John Goodman. Set months after the finale of the series, Karter and Claudia comes across a entire group of witches, where they met a teenage witch named Cassie. However, they discover a most powerful evil witch has been unleashed and plan to destroying and taking over Darktown as part of his revenge. So, it's up to Karter and Claudia to stop an evil witch from destroying their town.

*Darktown: Rise of the Witches* was initially set to be released as a direct-to-video film, but was instead released theatrically on October 18, 2002 by Warner Bros. Pictures, and received generally positive reviews from critics praising the action, voice acting, and humor. The film was nonetheless a box office success, outperforming it's projections grossing over $443 million against its $60 million budget which made it at the time, the highest grossing animated TV show adaptation. It also served as the series finale of the original *Darktown* series, as no further episodes were made to continue from where it left off. Through syndication, television broadcasting as well as internet popularity and various follow-up media in the franchise, the film has gained a cult following with some naming it one of the best animated films of all time.

After being in limbo and development hell due to Bird’s commitments to Disney as well as the newer found popularity of the franchise, Warner Bros. greenlit a revival/continuation series in 2019 along with a direct sequel with the former being released in 2022 while the latter being released on October 7, 2022 in the United States.

## Cast

* Candi Milo
* E.G. Daily
* Tress MacNeille
* Scott Menville
* Charlie Adler
* B.J. Ward
* Tony Jay
* Frank Welker
* Desirée Goyette
* Jason Marsden
* Willem Dafoe
* Jodi Benson
* Dan Aykroyd
* Richard Kind
* John Goodman

## Release

### Theatrical

*Darktown: Rise of the Witches* was originally set to be released as a direct-to-video film in Fall 2002, but in February 2001, Warner Bros. announced that the film would be released theatrically due to the popularity of the series as well as from positive reactions from test audiences.

### Marketing

The official teaser trailer was released in March 2002 and was included on the VHS and DVD release of *Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring*. It was also later shown theatrically with *Imagine* in the United States. A second trailer consisting of new animation debuted in June 2002.

### Home media

*Darktown: Rise of the Witches* was released on VHS and DVD on March 11, 2003. The film was the best-selling DVD in its initial week of release, selling over 600,000 copies and making over $18.9 million.

*More coming soon!*

## Transcript

### Trailers

To read the trailer transcripts, go here.