So it looks like the witches have cast their spell and it’s working beautifully. After weeks of watching Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey dominate the box office, Practical Magic 2 arrived on its broom at number one and swept everyone down a spot. Not bad for a sequel to a film that Hollywood did not exactly know what to do with the first time around. According to the Associated Press, Practical Magic 2 opened at the top of the North American box office with $30 million from 4,146 theatres. Entertainment Weekly also reports that the film earned $16 million internationally, bringing its global opening to $46 million.
So yes, the witches are back with a bang. But let’s not start celebrating just yet. Here are some things that we need to be cognisant of. The film reportedly cost around $75 million before marketing. This means a $46 million global opening is a good start, but isn’t exactly a victory lap. This to me is very interesting because beating any random movie is one thing, but for Practical Magic 2 to beat Spider-Man: Brand New Day that had been sitting comfortably at number one for weeks is something else. And The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s very expensive and very successful epic, was still very much in the conversation too.
So after a summer of superheroes, huge franchises and Nolan doing Nolan things, the witchy sequel stepped into the top spot. Built on sisterhood, curses and nostalgia. The original Practical Magic was released in 1998, which received mixed reviews and had a fairly modest box office run. For a while, it looked like one of those late-90s films that might simply disappear into a cloud of smoke. But some movies have a strange second life.
These movies do not necessarily become huge in the moment. But they do grow on us after people find them on TV, recommend them to friends, watch them at sleepovers, quote them at the right time and slowly turn them into something more personal than a normal film release. And that seems to be the case for Practical Magic. Over time, it became more of a comfort movie that many of us can relate to. A film about sisters, grief, love, bad choices, family curses and women trying to survive feelings that are clearly not helped by magic. Which, to be fair, is already more useful than half the life advice on the internet.
The sequel which arrived nearly three decades later brings Bullock and Kidman back as Sally and Gillian Owens, while also introducing a younger generation of witches played by Joey King and Maisie Williams. Susanne Bier directs the sequel, which is based on Alice Hoffman’s work and returns to the Owens family curse. I suppose this could have gone wrong in more ways than one because legacy sequels can be quite tricky. But Hollywood loves them because people tend to gravitate toward familiar titles.
And yes, I agree that not every old favourite needs to come back with another chapter. I guess sometimes the memory serves perfectly fine on its own, without having numerous iterations that can damage it. But Practical Magic 2 had the advantage where people kept it alive. And therein lies the difference. You see, this sequel is stepping into a space that audiences had already kept warm. And that may explain why its opening weekend feels more meaningful than the number itself. Yes, $30 million domestic is the headline. But the bigger story is that this kind of movie can still become an event.
Now don’t get me wrong, this is definitely not an event in the Marvel sense. The event here is softer than that, created by Bullock and Kidman returning to characters people grew attached to long after the first film left the cinemas. It is the strange power of a movie that became beloved because audiences decided it was. And when audiences decide something for themselves, that connection tends to last.
That is why Practical Magic 2 knocking Spider-Man off the top spot feels amusing, but also telling. It reminds us that box office power does not only belong to the loudest franchise in the room. Sometimes it belongs to the film that is quietly working in the background. Of course, the sequel still has to prove it can last beyond opening weekend, but nevertheless a number one debut is useful. Staying power is another thing entirely. The film will need good word of mouth, repeat viewings and enough audience affection to carry it through the next few weeks. Especially with that reported budget hanging over it.
But for now, it has done something worth talking about. A film that was once misunderstood and basically flopped was brought back with its original stars and managed to interrupt the box office reign of Spider-Man and Nolan. That is definitely worth the hype. I don’t believe that every 90s movie needs a sequel. But I will be the first to admit that nostalgia works best when it has actually been earned. And the fact is that people can tell the difference between a story returning because there is more to say, and a brand returning because someone found an old title in a spreadsheet. Practical Magic had a life after its release by becoming part of people’s personal movie history. So when the sequel arrived, audiences did not treat it like a random revival.
They treated it like someone had finally reopened a door they remembered. Practical Magic 2 did not need to beat Spider-Man forever to make its point. It just needed one weekend at the top to remind Hollywood that audiences still have room for stories that feel personal, strange and emotionally familiar.
The witches came back.
People showed up.
And somewhere, probably, a studio executive is wondering how many other misunderstood 90s movies might secretly be sitting on a spellbook.
