Hexed: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

"Hexed" is Walt Disney Animation Studios' return to witchcraft as a coming-of-age engine, directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn ("Wish") and Jason Hand ("Moana 2"), with Hailee Steinfeld as suburban teen Billie Doe crossing into the witch world of Hexe. This mix traces the studio's own sorcery lineage, the live-action witch comedies that shaped its tone, and the children's-book tradition of apprentice witches behind it.

The Kynda mix for Hexed

• Key Influence · Kiki's Delivery Service by Hayao Miyazaki (1989). The template for the modern animated witch story: a teenage girl leaves home, discovers her powers are tied to her confidence, and must learn a trade rather than defeat a villain. Studio Ghibli's film reframed witchcraft as adolescence itself, and virtually every subsequent animated witch feature — including Disney's move toward a suburban teen crossing into a witch society — works downstream of Miyazaki's gentler, vocational magic.
• Influencia Obscura · Bell, Book and Candle by Richard Quine (1958). The forgotten hinge of American witch comedy: Kim Novak as a Greenwich Village witch hiding among ordinary people, with James Stewart as the bewildered mortal. It directly inspired "Bewitched" and through it the entire suburban-witch genre — the idea that a witch community exists invisibly parallel to normal life, with its own etiquette and family pressures. Nearly unknown today, it is the ancestor of every secret-witch-world premise.
• Local Roots · Big Hero 6 by Don Hall (2014). The Burbank story-room lineage that produced both directors. Don Hall has been a central mentor figure in Walt Disney Animation Studios' post-2010 era, directing features on which the studio's current crop of story artists trained; Veerasunthorn and Hand both rose through that pipeline from story and animation departments into directing. "Big Hero 6" marks the house method — ensemble comedy, emotional engine, hybrid genre — they inherited.
• Beyond the Medium · The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy (1974). Murphy's slim book about Mildred Hubble, the clumsiest pupil at Miss Cackle's Academy, invented the modern witch-school comedy a quarter-century before Hogwarts. Its comedy comes from institutional rules — uniforms, cats, broomstick exams — applied to magic, and from a heroine whose incompetence is her charm. That literary tradition of the inept apprentice inside a formal witch society is the bedrock a film about entering Hexe stands on.
• Peer · Nimona by Nick Bruno (2023). Co-directed with Troy Quane, this ND Stories/Annapurna feature is the closest contemporary analogue: a shapeshifting outsider girl crashes into an institutional fantasy world that defines some people as monsters. Released as Disney's own fantasy slate was being reshaped, it demonstrated that teen-voiced, graphically bold fantasy comedy could carry real emotional weight — the same commercial and tonal territory "Hexed" enters.
• Key Collaborator · Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse by Bob Persichetti (2018). Steinfeld voices Billie Doe, and her Gwen Stacy is the performance that proved she could anchor animation: dry, guarded, emotionally precise, with a teenager's defensive humour intact. Sony's film also normalised casting live-action actors for naturalistic animated line delivery rather than broad cartoon voice work — the approach Disney now uses, and the reason Steinfeld fronts a suburban-teen-turned-witch comedy.
• Legacy · The Owl House by Dana Terrace (2020). Terrace's Disney Television Animation series is the company's most fully realised witch world: a human girl crosses into the Boiling Isles, apprentices to an outlaw witch, and navigates a magic society organised into rigid covens. Its cult success inside Disney demonstrated the appetite for institutional witch fantasy aimed at teenagers, and it is the in-house precedent any Disney feature entering that territory must answer to.

What influenced Hexed

• Mary and the Witch's Flower by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (2017). Mary and the Witch's Flower (Hiromasa Yonebayashi) — ghost for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy (1974). The Worst Witch (Jill Murphy) — culture for Hexed (wikidata.org)
• Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (1987). Equal Rites (Terry Pratchett) — culture for Hexed (openlibrary.org)
• Bedknobs and Broomsticks by Robert Stevenson (1971). Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Robert Stevenson) — titan for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• Bell, Book and Candle by Richard Quine (1958). Bell, Book and Candle (Richard Quine) — ghost for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• Kiki's Delivery Service by Hayao Miyazaki (1989). Kiki's Delivery Service (Hayao Miyazaki) — titan for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson (1979). Which Witch? (Eva Ibbotson) — culture for Hexed (openlibrary.org)
• The Sword in the Stone by Wolfgang Reitherman (1963). The Sword in the Stone (Wolfgang Reitherman) — titan for Hexed (themoviedb.org)

Peers and kindred spirits

• Stephen Fry. Stephen Fry is named as a voice actor in the film. (also via The Hippopotamus) “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld , Rashida Jones , Jodie Foster , Walton Goggins , Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry .” (Wikipedia)
• Tracey Ullman. Tracey Ullman is named as a voice actor in the film. (also via Tracey Takes On...) “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld , Rashida Jones , Jodie Foster , Walton Goggins , Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry .” (Wikipedia)
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse by Bob Persichetti (2018). Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti) — collaborator for Hexed “She voiced Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and its 2023 sequel, Vi in the Netflix series Arcane (2021–2024), and Billie Doe in the Disney animated film Hexed (2026).” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Yvett Merino. The film credits Yvett Merino as a producer. “Produced by Roy Conli Yvett Merino Starring Hailee Steinfeld Rashida Jones Jodie Foster” (Wikipedia)
• Rashida Jones. Rashida Jones is named as a voice actor in the film. “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld , Rashida Jones , Jodie Foster , Walton Goggins , Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry .” (Wikipedia)
• Roy Conli. The film credits Roy Conli as a producer. “Produced by Roy Conli Yvett Merino Starring Hailee Steinfeld Rashida Jones Jodie Foster” (Wikipedia)
• Jason Hand. Jason Hand is identified as a director of the film. “Hexed is an upcoming American animated fantasy comedy film directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios .” (Wikipedia)
• Fawn Veerasunthorn. Fawn Veerasunthorn is identified as a director of the film. “Hexed is an upcoming American animated fantasy comedy film directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios .” (Wikipedia)
• The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry (1994). The Hippopotamus (Stephen Fry) — collaborator for Hexed “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld, Rashida Jones, Jodie Foster, Walton Goggins, Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Jared Bush. Jared Bush receives a screenplay credit for the film. “Screenplay by Jared Bush [ 1 ] Dana Ledoux Miller [ 1 ] Produced by Roy Conli Yvett Merino” (Wikipedia)
• Walton Goggins. Walton Goggins is named as a voice actor in the film. “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld , Rashida Jones , Jodie Foster , Walton Goggins , Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry .” (Wikipedia)
• Tracey Takes On... by Tracey Ullman (1996). Tracey Takes On... (Tracey Ullman) — collaborator for Hexed “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld, Rashida Jones, Jodie Foster, Walton Goggins, Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Jodie Foster. Jodie Foster is named as a voice actor in the film. “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld , Rashida Jones , Jodie Foster , Walton Goggins , Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry .” (Wikipedia)
• Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones. Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones was initially announced as a producer. “At that stage, the feature was announced with Josie Trinidad and Jason Hand as directors, and Roy Conli and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones as producers.” (Wikipedia)
• Dana Ledoux Miller. Dana Ledoux Miller receives a screenplay credit for the film. “Screenplay by Jared Bush [ 1 ] Dana Ledoux Miller [ 1 ] Produced by Roy Conli Yvett Merino” (Wikipedia)
• Josie Trinidad. Josie Trinidad was initially announced as a director of the film. “At that stage, the feature was announced with Josie Trinidad and Jason Hand as directors, and Roy Conli and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster-Jones as producers.” (Wikipedia)
• Walt Disney Animation Studios. The page identifies Walt Disney Animation Studios as the film's producer. “Hexed is an upcoming American animated fantasy comedy film directed by Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand and produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios .” (Wikipedia)
• Hailee Steinfeld (2007). Hailee Steinfeld is named as a voice actor in the film. “It stars the voices of Hailee Steinfeld , Rashida Jones , Jodie Foster , Walton Goggins , Tracey Ullman and Stephen Fry .” (Wikipedia)
• Turning Red by Domee Shi (2022). Turning Red (Domee Shi) — peer for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• Moana by John Musker (2016). Moana (John Musker) — geography for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• Nimona by Nick Bruno (2023). Nimona (Nick Bruno) — peer for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• Big Hero 6 by Don Hall (2014). Big Hero 6 (Don Hall) — geography for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines by Mike Rianda (2021). The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Mike Rianda) — peer for Hexed (themoviedb.org)

Who Hexed influenced

• Wednesday by Tim Burton (2022). Wednesday (Tim Burton) — legacy for Hexed (themoviedb.org)
• The Owl House by Dana Terrace (2020). The Owl House (Dana Terrace) — legacy for Hexed (themoviedb.org)