Disney’s New Movie Had a ‘Secret Ingredient’: Swapping the Hero’s Gender

When Disney’s chief creative officer Jared Bush initially introduced Hexed at the 2025 D23 expo, the premise centered on a socially awkward boy uncovering latent magical abilities that upended both his life and a hidden supernatural realm. However, the debut trailer this past June revealed a significant pivot: the protagonist is now a teenage girl. During a roundtable discussion at the Annecy Festival, directors Jason Hand and Fawn Veerasunthorn clarified the creative reasoning behind this shift.

“The parent-child bond has always been the anchor of this narrative, and we realized the emotional stakes hit hardest between a mother and daughter,” Hand noted. “It resonated perfectly with the themes of witchcraft and the quest for self-empowerment.”

An early screening at Annecy offered a deeper dive into the world of Hexed, slated for a November 25 release. We meet Billie (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld), a disillusioned teen struggling to find her footing in high school. Her life takes a supernatural turn when the protective bracelet her mother, Alice (Rashida Jones), insisted she never remove, slips off. Almost immediately, Billie begins channeling the raw magical energy Alice had spent years carefully suppressing. While the film shares DNA with other Disney classics about fractured family dynamics—such as Moana and Encanto—the directors are adamant that Hexed offers a distinct experience.

“There are universal story archetypes that audiences naturally gravitate toward because they strike such a deep emotional chord,” Veerasunthorn explained. “By focusing on the specificity of our lead character’s journey and the unique rules of our magical system, we believe we’ve carved out something truly singular.”

Billie eventually discovers a portal to Hexe, a hidden sanctuary for witches who sought refuge in the natural world. There, she encounters a cast of enchanted objects reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, all while being pursued by sinister spellcasters capable of morphing into raven swarms. Though the “magical discovery” trope is familiar territory seen in series like Harry Potter or The Owl House, Veerasunthorn emphasizes that the heart of Hexed lies in the mother-daughter dynamic rather than a solitary hero’s journey.

“This story is fundamentally about a girl unlocking her potential, but unlike typical solo hero narratives, her mother is the secret ingredient,” she said. “That collaborative bond is exactly what sets this apart.”

Ultimately, Billie must unearth her family’s buried secrets to prevent her mother from falling prey to the forces hunting them. “As a daughter who has become a mother myself, I was deeply invested in telling a story that explores the hidden facets of our parents’ lives—the joys, the mischief, and the errors they made before we ever came into the picture,” Veerasunthorn reflected. “We are often the result of history that began long before we existed.”

Source: Polygon