Can ‘Practical Magic 2′ Wave a Wand and Save Warner Bros.’ Rough Year at the Box Office?

“Practical Magic 2” opens this weekend. The long-awaited sequel to the witchy rom-com starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman from 1998 isn’t some beloved classic the way “The Devil Wears Prada” is, but people like it — and it was on heavy rotation on cable for decades. Miss Congeniality and the AMC lady drink “Midnight Margaritas.” It’s fun. Trust us.

Suddenly, though, that sequel carries a lot more importance than its breezy subject matter would suggest, as Warner Bros. is depending on this movie to be a fortune-changing hit after a year at the box office that’s been less than magical. It took a second to realize just how big a hole the studio was in, given that it was riding the coattails of an astonishing 2025, when it delivered a string of surprise successes by betting on original stories from auteurs.

These big swings included “Sinners” and “Weapons,” which made bank, and “One Battle After Another,” which lost nearly $100 million but won the Oscar for Best Picture, so all is forgiven. There was also “Minecraft,” which launched another franchise by capitalizing on the mania for all things video games, and popular sequels to “Final Destination” and “The Conjuring.”

The hit streak made film chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy the toasts of the town, and it came after there had been incessant speculation that Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav had grown tired of the duo and was contemplating axing them. Instead, they were celebrated in one glowing profile after another as cinema’s saviors, and thanked profusely at the Oscars after not only “One Battle,” but also “Weapons” and “Sinners” captured major prizes.

2026 started with what looked like it would keep that win streak of No. 1 hits at the box office alive when “Wuthering Heights” from Emerald Fennell, another expensive swing on a daring filmmaker with a grand vision, opened to an impressive $32.8 million. Then things changed — dramatically.

There was Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride!,” New Line’s action horror film “They Will Kill You,” “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy,” “Evil Dead Burn,” the Anne Hathaway dinosaur movie “The End of Oak Street,” and of course “Supergirl.” Almost every single one of those films, save “The Mummy,” is a money loser, and some are massive bombs. “The Bride!,” for instance, had a $90 million budget and only made $24 million, which means it lost nearly $100 million when marketing costs are taken into account (theaters keep roughly half of ticket sales).

It’s easy to forget that 2025 started on a sour note, with De Luca and Abdy on the hot seat after they released “Mickey 17,” “The Alto Knights,” and not long before that the massive letdown of “Joker: Folié a Deux.” And expectations for “Sinners” and “One Battle” were less than stratospheric at the time, with reports of reshoots leading to speculation the films were in trouble (they turned out to be modern masterpieces). So analysts are willing to give WB the benefit of the doubt… at least for now.

“They came back huge. So when a studio has that magic year, it would be very rare for any studio to have two years in a row. When you have a watershed year, it’s hard,” Rentrak senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian told IndieWire. “They’ll be fine. Every studio has their ups and their downs.”

The good news too is that “Practical Magic 2” is tracking strongly, with the studio projecting for an opening weekend between $30 to $35 million, as well as an international take of between $18 to $23 million, with some projections even going as high as $40 million domestic. If it gets to $40 million, that would be Warner’s best opening of the year, just ahead of “Mortal Kombat II” and “Supergirl.” It’s positioned to be the sort of popcorn movie that can do well in the early fall before awards season truly gets going. Plus, shot for $75 million, it’s a relatively economical investment for Warner Bros., which shelled out more than $185 million for “Supergirl.”

“‘Practical Magic’ is going to benefit from obviously the nostalgia factor, but it will also be a fun group night out to go see that movie,” Dergarabedian added. “No one is expecting it to be the Academy Award winner for Best Picture, and nor should they, but it’s fast food, and it’s definitely benefitting from the tail wind of this summer when usually Labor Day is a fallow period.”

Dergarabedian is right. Most critics weren’t big fans of the movie (though IndieWire’s Alison Foreman liked it), but there’s plenty of goodwill for Kidman and Bullock. The first “Practical Magic” wasn’t a big box office hit when it opened (it made $94 million worldwide), but it became a cult favorite on home entertainment, establishing a multi-generation fanbase.

‘Digger’ Warner Bros.

For De Luca and Abdy, the pressure is also on because they are poised to have a new boss when Paramount’s David Ellison gets the keys to Warners’ Burbank lot. The timing of the release of “Practical Magic 2” release could be propitious. Initially, Paramount expected its merger to close in mid-summer, just as “Supergirl” was flaming out at the box office (though DC chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran shoulder the blame for that bomb). However, a legal challenge from a dozen state attorneys general has delayed things for months.

Now, not only is “Practical Magic 2” expected to connect with audiences, but Warner Bros., along with Legendary, also has “Dune: Part Three” hitting theaters in December. There’s also “Cat in the Hat,” which could appeal to families and represents a relaunch of WB Animation, and DC’s “Clayface,” a body horror film that studio sources say is genuinely terrifying, though if it works, credit goes to Gunn and Safran.

The one big question mark is “Digger.” The dark comedy about a pot-bellied billionaire in need of Propecia stars Tom Cruise and was directed by Oscar-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu. That’s an impressive pedigree, but the studio’s decision to skip the fall festivals and its $125 million price tag has Hollywood tongues wagging that “Digger” is going to be a disaster.

But De Luca and Abdy know a thing or two about overcoming that kind of bad buzz. The town was saying the same things about “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another,” and they proved the naysayers wrong. If “Digger” follows in their footsteps, “Practical Magic 2” could be the start of another epic comeback for Warner Bros. and its studio chiefs. If not, it may be a rare bright spot in a really dark year.