We’re trying to stay calm this week, but the internet is making it hard: the trailer for Practical Magic 2 has dropped and we are darned excited…
Finally, things are looking up.
I mean, I’m sorry no, I don’t have the inside scoop that any of the wars that are taking place on this planet are about to end – or that our insane fuel prices and general cost of living is about to ease up.
BUT. Hear me out, because there is at least a little bit of joy coming on the horizon for all us strung-out millennials who are just longing for something nice to happen.
And that little salve is Practical Magic 2.
The trailer dropped this week – sadly the film isn’t out until September – but even that was enough to make me gasp with delight when I realised it was out.
I was 16 years old when the original movie came out – absolutely prime ‘Hey, maybe I should become a witch?’ years. I had gone off the idea a few years earlier when The Craft came out (I’ll never forget seeing it at a sleepover and spending most of the night with one eye open in case Nancy somehow turned up in the living room), but had been pulled right back into the allure of witchcraft thanks to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed and my local Acquisitions store having a half-price sale on trinkets and tea lights.
Practical Magic was 90s film perfection. It was based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Alice Hoffman – and sadly, despite its perfection – it wasn’t a massive hit when it first came out. In the years since though, it has definitely become a cult favourite.
Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman play sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, who become outcasts as kids after their parents are tragically killed and they’re sent to live with their aunts. Those aunts just happen to be low-key witches (played by Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, no less) who teach them about the craft.
But Sally and Gillian have very different feelings about witchcraft and, it turns out, love. As a child Sally decides she never wants to fall in love and casts a spell on herself to ensure she will only fall in love with a man who possesses impossible traits. As it turns out, her aunts cast their own spell – without her knowledge – when she is a young woman, so that she marries a nice young man, Michael. Tragically though, the Owens sisters come from a long line of witches – all of whom are cursed by a spell that dooms any man an Owens woman loves. When Sally and Michael’s children are still just very young, he falls victim to the curse and is killed.
Meanwhile, Gillian is off travelling the country going from relationship to relationship, until she finds herself with a very dangerous man. Sally comes to try to rescue her, but when both sisters lives are in danger, she slips him a light sedative – but accidentally overdoes things and kills him. From there… well, all hell breaks loose.
Like I said, this film was absolute 90s perfection. This (ridiculous?) witchy falling in love montage scene set to Faith Hill’s big ballad, This Kiss?!?!
A referesher:
And its best scene – midnight margaritas with the aunts (still one of my favourite memes to send to my friends):
Enough about the past though, because in recent years Alice Hoffman started writing about the Owens women again. In 2017 she wrote The Rules of Magic – a prequel to Practical Magic. Then in 2020 she wrote Magic Lessons which went even further into the past. And lastly, in 2021 she wrote what she says is the final book in the series, The Book of Magic, which the latest movie is said to be based on. So, just what are we in store for?
Everything We Know About Practical Magic 2
If you’re wanting to know all the info that’s been released – or we’ve hunted out – about this movie, you’ve come to the right place. And a little warning here, if you somehow haven’t seen Practical Magic, there are loads of spoilers in this part!
When is it happening: Practical Magic 2 hits cinemas here in NZ on September 10.
Who is in it: As you’ll know from the trailer, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are most definitely back, thankfully alongside Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest.
From there, there’s a bit of a shake-up. In the original, Sally’s young daughters were played by Evan Rachel Wood and Alexandra Artrip – this time around her adult daughters are being played by The Kissing Booth’s Joey King and Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams.
Perhaps quite strangely, given where we left off in the last film, Aidan Quinn is totally absent. He played inspector Gary Hallet in Practical Magic – the man who had one green eye and one blue, who’s favourite shape would be a star, who would flip pancakes in the air and could hear her call from a mile away, just what she described in the spell she cast as a child.
Aidan told officialspin1038 earlier this year that he wasn’t approached to join the sequel. “I would have said yes, but I wasn’t asked.”
He said Nicole and Sandra were both great to work with “You know, most of my stuff was with Sandy but they were both phenomenal to work with. We had a good time.”
The leading man this time, appears to be Lee Pace, who might be familiar from his role as Thranduil the Elvenking in The Hobbit trilogy – or maybe even from Twilight? He played Garrett, an old vampire friend of Carlisle Cullen (Look, I had to Google that one too to work out who Garrett was).
What it’s about: The lack of Sally’s love interest from the first movie is slightly confusing – because the film did end giving us the impression that the sisters had managed to break the curse that hung over their family, and they even gained acceptance from their community in the process. But… alas, by the looks of the trailer, the curse is still very present (terrible for the Tinder profile, apparently) and it looks as though this film is going to be focusing on the Owens women breaking the curse for good – which is what the book is very much about!
Who’s making it: Susanne Bier is at the helm as director – she’s worked with Sandra Bullock before, as director on the 2018 hit Bird Box. And likewise with Nicole Kidman on the 2024 TV mini series, The Perfect Couple. She also directed one of the greatest mini-series ever, The Night Manager.
Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman who was part of the team who wrote the screenplay for Practical Magic is back again and is this time joined Georgia Pritchett who is best known for her scriptwriting on Succession and Veep.
Is it gonna be like the first movie? We’re feeling optimistic and excited about this one, based on the trailer. IT FEATURES FAITH HILL’S THIS KISS. And, Sandra Bullock has joined Instagram and her first post was of her making witchy margaritas – so, things are looking good.