A couple months ago, it was officially announced that Warner Bros. is moving forward with a sequel to the 1998 film Practical Magic, with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman reprising the roles of sister witches Sally and Gillian Owens. Now producer Denise Di Novi has given an interview to People where she promised that the new film will honor the original and not attempt to reinvent the wheel.
Based on a novel by Alice Hoffman and directed by Griffin Dunne from a screenplay by Robin Swicord, Akiva Goldsman, and Adam Brooks, Practical Magic revolves around two witch sisters, Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian Owens (Nicole Kidman), who live in a small town alongside their eccentric Aunt Frances (Stockard Channing). As the sisters attempt to practice their craft, they face closed-minded prejudice and a curse that threatens to prevent them from ever finding lasting love. The curse dictates that whoever falls in love with one of the sisters dies an untimely death. Sally and Gillian live separate lives with different approaches to their magical gifts. Sally chooses to live quietly, while Gillian is a wild child who flaunts her abilities. When the sisters accidentally kill Gillian’s violent partner, Jimmy Angelov (Goran Visnjic), a string of supernatural events unfold, sending the duo into a race to undo a family curse.
Akiva Goldsman is writing the script for the sequel. Plot details haven’t been revealed yet, but Hoffman has given the filmmakers plenty of source material to work with: the Practical Magic novel has two prequels (The Rules of Magic and Magic Lessons) and a sequel (The Book of Magic).
Di Novi is producing the Practical Magic sequel with Bullock and Kidman. Speaking with People, Di Novi said, “I think the big mistake people make with sequels is when they kind of want to reinvent the wheel and be totally original and surprise people that it’s different or whatever. (We get) how important the first movie is to so many people, women in particular, and we want to honor that for sure. There’s a joyousness to that movie, and there’s such beautiful themes of sisterhood and family and acceptance, tolerance, love. Just the title that Alice Hoffman, the amazing author, thought of that’s now become part of the vernacular of Practical Magic is that there’s magic in daily life, in love, in family, in sisterhood. It’s magical, and we all have our gifts, and women have very particular and specific gifts. We really want to honor all of that.“
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