When Practical Magic was released in October 1998, there was little reason to expect the story of the Owens sisters to continue almost three decades later. Despite the star power of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, and its $94.4 million global box office earnings, the film never felt like an obvious franchise starter. Critical perception was also largely negative, with the film earning a 31% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

But all of that changed when Practical Magic developed a cult following years after its theatrical run ended. The movie even entered the HBO Max Top 10 shortly after arriving on the service in 2024. That unexpected resurgence proved that long-time fans and new viewers were invested in the story of witch sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, who are plagued by a family curse that causes any man they fall in love with to die.

The original Practical Magic was difficult to sell in 1998

Viewers were not ready for a movie about witches

Credit: Warner Bros.

One reason Practical Magic struggled to find a larger audience at the time of its release may be that it was difficult to explain what the movie actually was. The story had witches, a love curse, and supernatural elements, but it wasn’t really a traditional fantasy movie. It was also not a straightforward romantic comedy, despite two major stars being at the center of the story.

Contemporary reviews, like the one on RogerEbert, repeatedly picked up on that uncertainty, describing the movie as a mixture of romance, comedy, horror, and fantasy that did not always fit together. That made the movie an unusual proposition for its time. Additionally, all the important characters were women.

Sally and Gillian were surrounded by their aunts, while the story focused heavily on the Owens family’s history and the relationships between its women. The San Francisco Chronicle even described the film as unusual because major female characters were fronting the movie together. That seems oddly insulting, even by the standards of the decade.

In retrospect, that may have been the movie’s biggest problem. Practical Magic was built around female characters and a very specific kind of supernatural angle, but those qualities were not necessarily what audiences were being encouraged to look for in a major studio release in 1998. But the same elements that once hindered the film would eventually become a major part of what made it distinctive.

The sequel has a new story to tell

The Book of Magic

Credit: Warner Bros.

What makes Practical Magic 2 different from every other cash-grab-feeling sequel out there is the source material behind it. Alice Hoffman, who wrote the book the first movie was based on, published a sequel in 2021 called The Book of Magic. The story follows the newest generation of the Owens women as they try to break the love curse once and for all.

Practical Magic 2 gives us a version of that story, which starts when Sally’s (Bullock) second husband dies. At the same time, her aunt Bridget (Dianne Wiest) discovers the Book of Raven and finds instructions that could finally break the curse. But the process is far more complicated than following a few instructions from a book.

When Sally’s daughter Kylie (Joey King) discovers that there’s more to her magical heritage than she realized, she travels to England in search of Lockland Manor, where she meets a warlock with evil intentions. Sally and Gillian (Kidman) follow, pulling the original characters into a conflict much larger than the one they faced in the first movie.

The result is a sequel with its own story and new characters to introduce. That meant Practical Magic had both a reason to continue and an audience that was familiar with where the story had started. Still, the critical response has been mixed, with Practical Magic 2 currently holding a 36% score on Rotten Tomatoes and the site’s general consensus saying it’s “not worth the trouble.”

Practical Magic 2 topped the box office after a modest opening

The ticket sales tell a different story

Practical Magic 2 didn’t open with the kind of earnings that would normally define a major franchise revival. The sequel made around $30 million in the United States during its opening weekend, below the roughly $40 million projected before release. It also made around $16 million internationally, giving it a global opening of approximately $46 million.

Yet the movie still reached number one at the domestic box office, which is a pretty big deal since it dethroned Spider-Man: Brand New Day in the process. The Marvel Studios movie had managed to hold onto the top spot for six weeks before the Owens sisters returned to cinemas. By Sept. 22, Practical Magic 2 had made an impressive $78.4 million globally.

This proves that sometimes a movie just needs time to find the audience it was supposed to have. Practical Magic may not have made the impact Warner Bros. expected in 1998, but that did not stop people from becoming attached to the story eventually. There are lots of movies that get dismissed and never get another chance. Practical Magic was lucky enough to get a second life.