A huge moment in time. When Matilda debuted in 1996, no one knew what kind of impact it would have.
The comedy, coproduced and directed by star Danny DeVito, was based on the 1988 Roald Dahl novel of the same name.
Mara Wilson starred as the title character, while DeVito and his then-wife Rhea Perlman played her parents, who lacked any warmth whatsoever. Luckily, with the help of her very supportive teacher, Miss Honey (portrayed by Embeth Davidtz), and her magical powers, Matilda Wormwood is able to cope with her rough home life. Pam Ferris also starred in the hit, playing Agatha Trunchbull, the ruthless principal of Crunchem Hall Elementary School who absolutely despised Matilda and Miss Honey.
Despite the book’s popularity, the movie wasn’t a box office hit, only earning around $33 million after having a $36 million budget. Still, it became a classic movie with a powerful message that stuck with its audiences.
“I think we hoped that it would be a hit and I think that Danny and everybody who wrote on it and worked on it hoped, you know, we really hoped that it would do something,” Wilson told Entertainment Tonight in 2021 to celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary. “We knew that there weren’t a lot of movies like this. There weren’t very many movies where intelligence is rewarded and resourcefulness is rewarded. There also weren’t that many movies about little girls and especially not little girls who had inner strength, so I think that we knew that we were doing something kind of special.”
While the Mrs. Doubtfire actress acknowledged that the movie wasn’t “a huge hit at the time,” she added that it gained an audience once it left the theaters.
“It became a hit especially with VHS and with DVD, and I have been signing VHS that people kept and DVDs that people kept for 25 years now, and that is something that is really cool,” she shared. “Probably the coolest thing is when people tell me they introduced their children to it, so they will say, ‘My daughter loves it, my son loves it. I watch it with my kids,’ and that is really cool to know that you are a part of something that is generational.”
In 2019, the Taxi alum admitted that he wanted to continue the story. “I always wanted to do Matilda 2, but when the kid was still a kid, but that was like 20 years ago, 25 years ago,” DeVito told ComicBook.com at the time. “Maybe Matilda has a kid, and we can do something [with] that, I don’t know.”
Scroll through to see what the cast has been up to since Matilda:
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