Written By | Entertainment Desk
Twenty-eight years after the original cult classic, the Owens sisters return — and so did the red-carpet chemistry that made them icons in the first place
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LONDON
There is a particular kind of premiere energy reserved for sequels nobody was sure they'd ever get, and on Wednesday night, the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square had it in full supply. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman arrived for the European premiere of "Practical Magic 2" nearly three decades after they first played sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, and the crowd outside — several rows deep, phones raised, chanting both actresses' names — made clear that the wait had done nothing to cool the film's cult following.
The 1998 original was, at the time, a modest box-office performer that critics mostly shrugged at. What it became instead was something rarer: a movie that found its real audience years later, through cable reruns, October streaming marathons and a fandom that treated it as comfort viewing long before "comfort viewing" was a marketing category. That slow-burn devotion is exactly why a sequel, arriving 28 years later, is being treated as a genuine cultural event rather than a nostalgia cash-grab.
A New Generation of Owens Women
"Practical Magic 2" picks up 25 years after the events of the first film, with the Owens family confronting a new crisis tied to a fresh discovery about their history and the true origins of their magic. Susanne Bier, the Danish director known for tonally complex work like "The Night Manager" and "Bird Box," takes the reins behind the camera, working from a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman and Georgia Pritchett that draws on Alice Hoffman's novel "The Book of Magic" — the same author whose original book inspired the first film.
The returning stars are joined by a cast built to carry the franchise forward: Joey King and Maisie Williams step into pivotal new roles as the next generation of Owens women, alongside Lee Pace, Xolo Maridueña, and franchise veterans Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, both reprising their roles as the eccentric aunts who anchored much of the original's charm. The mix signals a film aiming to hand the story to a new cast of young actors without asking longtime fans to let go of the ones they grew up loving.
Old Chemistry, New Gowns
If the plot details were kept close to the vest on the red carpet, the fashion was not. Bullock, 62, arrived in a strapless leopard-print Givenchy gown with a corseted bodice, an oversized bow at the skirt, and a thigh-high slit — a look built for exactly the kind of flashbulb moment it got. Kidman, reuniting with longtime stylist Jason Bolden and Chanel, wore a custom aquamarine gown with a sweetheart neckline, hand-placed sequins, and draped strands of pearls over the corset, its own thigh-high slit revealing metallic gold ankle-strap stilettos. Photographers described the pair's arrival, hand in hand, as the night's clear high point — two actresses who first shared a screen in 1998 still visibly, easily comfortable with each other 28 years on.
That ease read as more than red-carpet professionalism. Bullock and Kidman have spoken previously about how rare it is for female-led ensemble films to get sequels at all, let alone ones that reassemble the original cast rather than rebooting around new leads. Their reunion at CinemaCon earlier this year, where the pair took the stage together to declare simply that "the witches are back," was itself treated as a moment — proof that the studio understood the sequel's appeal rested on the original bond as much as any new plot.
Why a 28-Year Wait Actually Worked
Hollywood sequels chase momentum; "Practical Magic 2" did the opposite, and industry watchers argue that's precisely why anticipation has stayed high rather than curdling into skepticism. A quick-turnaround sequel in the early 2000s would have leaned on the same cultural context that shaped the original — a mid-'90s take on witchcraft, sisterhood and small-town suspicion of unconventional women. Coming out now, in a moment when female-led ensemble fantasy has proven itself commercially (from "Wicked" to a wave of witch-adjacent streaming hits), the sequel arrives into a marketplace that has, in a sense, caught up to what "Practical Magic" was doing all along.
There's also the matter of the original's afterlife. Unlike films that fade after their theatrical run, "Practical Magic" built its audience gradually across two and a half decades of television airings and, more recently, streaming algorithms that turned it into an autumn ritual for a generation of viewers who weren't even alive in 1998. That's an unusually patient audience to inherit — one less interested in spectacle than in tone, atmosphere and whether the sequel honors what made the first film feel like home.
What This Means for You
If you're one of the millions who has watched the original every October for years, the London premiere is the first real evidence that the sequel understands its assignment: the same core cast, a director with a track record for balancing warmth and menace, and a story built around inheritance — of magic, of family, of the burden and gift of being an Owens woman — rather than around rebooting the franchise from scratch.
"Practical Magic 2" is set for release on September 11, giving the film a full two and a half weeks between its European premiere and opening weekend to build word of mouth. Early reaction from the London crowd, by all accounts, leaned enthusiastic rather than cautious — a good early sign for a sequel that had nearly three decades of expectation to meet.
For a film industry increasingly reliant on existing intellectual property, "Practical Magic 2" is also a small test case worth watching: can a sequel built on patience, rather than urgency, actually pay off? Late September will have the answer at the box office. Wednesday night in Leicester Square suggested the audience, at least, is already there.
