Crash to classic: how Practical Magic’s box office hex marked the spot

September 3, 2026 — 12:00pmAlmost three decades ago, two young, somewhat raw actresses - Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock - walked onto the set of the film Practical Magic and met Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest. There was natural chemistry, and these four talented, complicated, beautiful women shared a powerful moment, if not, then at least, a cultural one.Based on the 1995 novel by Alice Hoffman, about a family of witches who are cursed, the film was, seemingly, both a critical and commercial failure. It would have been just another lost chapter in American cinema, except that something curious happened. The film did not go quietly. College campuses, girls’ movie nights, and TV reruns on rainy weekends turned it into a cultural bedrock.Nicole Kidman as Gilly Owens in Practical Magic 2.Warner BrosIn its post-cinematic life, Practical Magic became one of those movies for which approving murmurs become shouts, and the crown of cult hit is bestowed. It’s an honourable assembly: Soapdish, Hocus Pocus, Outrageous Fortune, Big Business all spring to mind. Unsurprisingly, they share one common thread: feisty women, who will not be silenced. Even when critics and studio accountants have had their say.A sequel, you say? Why not, thought producer Denise Di Novi, who got the show back on the road. And then, in the middle of last year, Kidman, Bullock, Channing and Wiest walked back on to the set - at the Warner Bros Studios Leavesden in Hertfordshire, England; the original was filmed in California - to rekindle the magic.“We’re the same, but more,” says Bullock, of the reconnection between the four women. “We’ve got way more experience, and depth, and honesty and …,” adds Kidman, before Bullock interrupts her with: “Less shame.” They also possess, adds Kidman, an “I don’t care, life ain’t fair attitude as well, strangely mixed in, which Dianne and Stockard absolutely have. And probably had originally.”Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic 2.Warner Bros“They were wicked then,” says Bullock, of the pair’s two older co-stars. “And they’re wicked now both in very unique ways. They’re so different. I think that’s what comes with life and wisdom, and seeing it all, you go, ‘oh, I didn’t have to sweat the small stuff. Why was I worrying about that?’ They know. When you know the secret, everything settles, and you can see it in their eyes.”“And they’re calm, they’re so calm,” adds Kidman. And now we’ve caught up. They were standing side stage at the London premiere, and they were both just deeply centred. And hopefully, we’re there with some mistakes we’ll make along the way still. We’re the aunts now.” Bullock agrees: “Yes, we’re the aunts now.”Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in the original Practical Magic.Warner BrosBoth Practical Magic and its sequel tell the story of the Owens family: the frank and assertive Frances (Channing), kinder, gentler Bridget (Wiest), and their two nieces, Sally (Bullock), who broadly has tried in her life to reject magic’s role in it, and Gillian (Kidman), a more free-spirited figure, who wields her spell-casting power with more mischief in mind. All, obviously, are witches.In the original film, the family’s curse - that any man they love will die, placed on the female line by their ancestor, Maria Owens - means that both younger women keep falling for, and inadvertently bringing about the death of, any handsome young man who catches their eye.Wiser women Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest return for Practical Magic 2.Warner BrosIn the sequel, the clock has advanced to the present, and Sally’s two daughters, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams) have come of age, and are looking for romance. The film also stars Xolo Maridueña, as Kylie’s new boyfriend Gideon, Solly McLeod, as handsome British villager Thomas Lockland, who watches over the ancient site where the Owens curse began, and Lee Pace as Ian Wright, an academic who offers to help Sally and Gillian.If the original struggled with its identity - it was all at once a dark comedy, a family drama, with touches of supernatural horror, and a crime thriller - then the sequel speaks with a much clearer voice. It is deeply sentimental, a more articulate essay on female empowerment and sisterhood, with a heavier dash of the supernatural thrown in, as Kylie risks all to reverse the family curse, and aunts Sally and Gilly set off after her.As a story about connection, coming out in what could be described as a time of great disconnection, the film also taps an artistic notion: that great art is typically either a reaction to the environment in which it is created, or a reflection of it. Practical Magic 2 might be both, and a reminder to think about what matters.“It’s a reminder of what they feel, it’s a reminder of what they’re feeling,” says Bullock. “We’re here on this planet in this lifetime. We’re a soul having a human experience, experience of what the human encasement can do, and can be, and how resilient it is. It’s just when you think you can’t do any more, you’re like, damn it, I feel. I feel. It’s an amazing thing.”Lee Pace and Sandra Bullock in a scene from Practical Magic 2.Warner Bros“To live a little, and to live a lot,” adds Kidman. “I mean, really, you never know when you’re not going to be able to, so get in there.”It is also, despite being the story of a curse which dooms men foolhardy enough to fall in love with the Owens women, something of an ode to love. Partly because the narrative of the sequel is young Kylie’s risky adventure to unearth the origin of the curse and find a way to reverse it. But mostly because it teaches a gentle lesson: that is there is no love without heartache.“It has different forms, not just romantic love,” Bullock says. “It’s not just me, not what I get, it’s what I’m able to feel, whether I like it or not,” she says.“And just when you think you’re done and incapable, something else blossoms up, and you’re like, wow. The heart is so resilient and the soul even more so. And I think we need to stop looking at love as only a romantic thing and just give it all the facets that it really has,” Bullock says.Kidman agrees, adding “the greatest two words, choose love. Because it can be incredibly healing, it can be incredibly freeing, and it can lead you places you had no idea [you could reach].”The film’s credits, too, contain a revealing footnote: a dedication to three women, “Michelle, Gesine and Antonia.” Though they are not named fully in the credits, they are, in order, Di Novi’s sister Michelle Di Novi, Bullock’s sister, attorney-turned-chef Gesine Bullock-Prado, and Kidman’s sister, broadcaster-turned-family lawyer Antonia Kidman.“They formed us,” Kidman says, of the relationship the three women have with their female siblings. “Denise said, do you want to dedicate the film to our sisters? We were immediately, yes, yes. Then I told Antonia, and I said, so sit to the end.”“My sister doesn’t know yet,” Bullock adds. So, you know, spoiler warning.“I think honouring those who have taken good care of us is imperative,” Bullock adds. “We always forget … from the ancestors, to the aunts, to the grandmothers, the mothers, the sisters, we need to say it, so they can hear it.”Practical Magic 2 opens nationally on September 10.Want more movies?His movie was a disaster. His movie about making it is a delight‘Grief never stops’: Jacki Weaver on love, loss and the antidote to sadnessHow Alexander Skarsgard became a total basket caseGillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder in a lurid slasher filmFrom our partners