Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are back in Practical Magic 2 — but they still remember the muted reaction to the original back in 1998.
“We thought, ‘This is going to be such an amazing film. People are going to love it.’ And then it got quiet. It got quiet,” Bullock, 62, shared with Variety at the Practical Magic 2 Los Angeles premiere on Monday, August 31.
The Oscar winner added, “[They] were like, ‘How many women in a film do you need? How many tones do you need? What kind of film is this?’”
While Practical Magic has become something of a cult classic in the nearly 30 years since its October 1998 release, at the time, it received mixed critical reactions and flopped at the box office. (The film grossed $68 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $75 million.)
Now, however, Practical Magic 2 is set to hit theaters, with Bullock and Kidman reprising their roles as sister witches Sally and Gillian (or “Gilly”) Owens, respectively. Stockard Channing and Dianne West return as Sally and Gilly’s aunts Frances (or “Franny”) and Jet.
“It just happened,” Kidman told Variety of the sequel. “It was more like serendipity, and it came, and we were ready, and everything fell into place. It’s like in life — you try to force things, it doesn’t work. You have to wait, be patient, and we [were] both kind of open to it.”
Game of Thrones alum Maisie Williams and A Family Affair actress Joey King play Bullock’s daughters in the new movie.
In a November 2025 conversation with Ariana Grande for Interview magazine, Kidman, 59, opened up about reuniting with longtime friend Bullock and her other costars after three decades.
The Oscar winner noted that often, “I don’t have fun when I’m filming,” because of the emotional toll of the scenes she’s in, but with the Practical Magic 2 cast, “I have such a strong relationship with all those women, so I felt protected and loved. It was just very, very safe.”
She added, “And to come back to something so many years later and go, ‘We’re still able to get this movie made at a big, big studio like Warner’s,’ and that Sandy and I were able to produce it and get it made is insane.”
Practical Magic 2 is released in theaters on September 10.
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