Practical Magic is a film revolving around the magically gifted sisters, Sally and Gillian Owens, played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. The fantasy romance drama was based on the namesake book by Alice Hoffman and saw the sisters use magic to destroy the evil spirit of Gillain’s abusive boyfriend, Jimmy Angelov, played by Goran Visnjic.
Just before filming Practical Magic, Nicole Kidman spent over a year working on Stanely Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut opposite her ex-husband, Tom Cruise. Since the erotic-psychological drama was quite an intense film, the actors required dozens of takes to finalize a single scene, a trait she carried over to Practical Magic.
Nicole Kidman’s Numerous Takes on Practical Magic
Even though Eyes Wide Shut (1999) was released one year after Practical Magic (1998), principal photography for the former began in November 1996 whereas for the latter it began early in 1998. Meaning, that Nicole Kidman had already spent months working with Stanley Kubrick and Tom Cruise on Eyes Wide Shut, a film that made $162 million at the box office.
The film pushed the actors to their limits thanks to Kubrick’s desire for perfection. As per Vanity Fair, the shoot was simply put, exhausting. While Kidman and Cruise were asked to commit to six months of 1996 initially, they ended up having to stay back for much more than they expected. Since filming finally wrapped in 1998, you can do the math of how exhausting it must have been for the cast and crew.
But that’s not all. While filming wrapped in January 1998, they were called back for reshoots in May. In the end, they spent a total of 15 months on the film.
The actors had to do a ton of retakes for even the simplest of the scenes including the time when Kubrick asked Cruise to do 95 takes for his character walking through a door. He even asked Kidman to shoot her naked scenes with a male model for six days and asked the duo to pose in about 50 erotic positions. Needless to say, Eyes Wide Shut’s excessive shoots, retakes, and the exhausting nature of the work must’ve taken a toll on the actors.
Kidman ended up bringing over this habit of retakes to Griffin Dunne’s Practical Magic. According to IMDb, the director faced an unusual issue during filming related to how many retakes Kidman and Sandra Bullock needed.
While Bullock would reportedly be done in about two to three takes, Kidman would need 70-80 takes to get a shot done since she was so accustomed to doing things the Kubrick way thanks to Eyes Wide Shut. While perfectionism is great sometimes, other times it can set back the efficiency and flow of filmmaking.
Regardless, the film eventually came together, and how! Both the lead actresses were phenomenal in their respective roles and while the film received mixed reviews from critics, the chemistry between Bullock and Kidman was applauded.
Abracadabra: Practical Magic Returns!
Warner Bros. took to Instagram to announce the return of Practical Magic. On June 10, they posted a clip three clips from the film announcing the sequel and captioned the post, “It’s official! Practical Magic 2 is in development and coming soon.”
People were over the moon upon hearing the news and the comment section was filled with excitement and fans hoping that Kidman and Bullock return to create more magic. According to E! News, the deals to bring back the actresses are currently underway.
The sequel will be written by Akiva Goldsman who was also the writer of the O.G. film along with Robin Swicord and Adam Brooks.
Variety reported that along with returning producer Denise Di Novi, Bullock and Kidman are also expected to work as producers. Apart from this, there is no news regarding either the storyline or the cast of the sequel. All we know is that we will be seated when the magic returns.
You can stream Practical Magic on Max.
