‘Practical Magic 2,’ the Sequel to a 28-Year-Old Box Office Bomb, Opens to Lackluster $30 Million

Hey Hollywood, stop giving us sequels we didn't ask for to movies that opened way too long ago for us to care.

Cast your mind back to 1998. Bill Clinton’s presidency is engulfed in the Lewinsky scandal. Cher is about to top the charts with her greatest banger, “Believe.” Cargo pants are inexplicably cool. And Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are playing witches in a rom-com that will open with high expectations and promptly bomb.

28 years later, Warner Bros., the studio behind “Practical Magic,” decided the second time’s the charm, bringing back Bullock and Kidman for more spells and sisterhood. Yet lo and behold, when “Practical Magic 2” debuted in theaters this weekend, audiences failed to show up in force. No, the film’s $30 million opening isn’t a fiasco. “Practical Magic 2” cost $75 million to produce, plus tens of millions more to market. So even though it will struggle to break even during its theatrical run, it’s not a disaster. In the lead-up to release, Warner Bros. tried to manage expectations, predicting a debut between $30 million and $35 million. The trades were more bullish, projecting a $40 million bow. It’s also in line with another recent Bullock film, such as the $30 million that “The Lost City” earned in 2022, though that was when the box office was struggling to come back from the pandemic.

The bigger issue is that “Practical Magic 2” is almost entirely a domestic proposition. The film netted a tepid $16 million globally from 77 markets. It needs older U.S. audiences to show up in the coming weeks to cushion that kind of performance. Adjusted for inflation, “Practical Magic 2’s” domestic opening is roughly in line with the $13.1 million that its predecessor debuted to in 1998, which would be $26.9 million in today’s dollars. The first “Practical Magic” would end its run with $94.4 million worldwide off its $60 million, making it a dud given that theaters keep roughly half of ticket sales.

On paper, reuniting two beloved stars seemed like a can’t-miss proposition. But given the tepid reception for “Practical Magic,” it seems the studio should have proceeded with more caution before greenlighting “Practical Magic 2.” What’s puzzling is how it continues Hollywood’s odd habit of reviving old properties that don’t necessarily have much resonance instead of, you know, coming up with a new idea.

Just this weekend, Searchlight Pictures announced that it was bringing back the gang from “The Family Stone,” a holiday dramedy that absolutely slayed me when I watched it fresh out of college in 2005 (I’m not so comfortably middle-aged now). At least that movie did well when it was in theaters, grossing $92 million on its $18 million budget. But the premise, that Craig T. Nelson has moved on after the death of Diane Keaton’s character and needs to introduce his new love to the family, seems … well I’m not ready for it emotionally. OK, I’m holding out a little hope that this group can recapture the humor and heartbreak that made the first movie a holiday viewing tradition for me (I need to ugly cry into my eggnog).

“The Families Stone” may end up being a good idea after all, but that doesn’t justify a dodgy strategy. Again and again and again, a risk-averse industry has raided its back catalogue instead of backing original projects. No one gets fired for making a sequel, the thinking goes, so why not keep greenlighting the most random and desperate of follow-ups. To be fair to Warner Bros., “Practical Magic 2” was supposed to be the sure thing that gave studio chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy the freedom to make some truly bold and daring stuff (See: “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “Weapons,” and, less successfully, “The Bride!”). Other studios don’t necessarily have the same excuse.

So audiences, whether they were asking for it or not, were given sequels to cult hits like “Blade Runner” and “Zoolander,” as well as once-popular franchises that were a decade or so out of the zeitgeist, such as “Independence Day” and “The Matrix.” In the case of “Blade Runner 2049,” the result was an artistic, if not a commercial, triumph. As for “Zoolander 2,” “Independence Day: Resurgence,” and “The Matrix Resurrections,” they were whiffs on all fronts.

Of course, sometimes absence does truly make the heart grow fonder. “Top Gun: Maverick” came out 36 years after Tom Cruise first felt the need for speed, and it earned $1.5 billion, resurrected the post-COVID box office, and reminded audiences about the magic of the big-screen experience. Clearly, that’s what Paramount is hoping happens when Cruise returns next summer for “Days of Thunder 2.” But do movie fans feel as warmly toward Cole Trickle as they did about Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, or will this be another desperate attempt at recapturing magic that was never really there in the first place?

In the case of “Practical Magic 2,” just because a lot of people caught the first film on TNT and TBS didn’t mean they would pay their hard-earned money to watch the coven get back together.