Key Points
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Practical Magic 2is the new queen in town after ousting both The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day from their long-held spots at the top of the box office.
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Warner Bros.’ sequel to the 1998 classic easily overtook its competitors this weekend, but $46 million globally isn’t a great opening take for a film that cost $75 million to produce.
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Next week, Zach Cregger’s Resident Evilwill attempt to claw its way to the top spot.
After nine weeks of undisputed dominance, The Odysseyand Spider-Man: Brand New Dayhave fallen to a witchy new foe. But Practical Magic 2‘s spell over the box office may not have been cast to last.
Director Susanne Bier and co-writers Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett, and Kelly Marcel’s spellbinding sequel to the 1998 classic directed by Griffin Dunne and Robin Swicord, and Adam Brooks conjured up $30 million domestically and $46 million globally this week, per box office tracker Rentrak
Those sums were more than enough to knock Matt Damon’s Odysseus and Tom Holland’s Spidey down a peg, securing the witchy Owens women, led by Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, a No. 1 film at home and abroad. That’s a win for Warner Bros., which took a gamble on the sequel nearly 30 years in the making. But the studio may not be viewing its odds so favorably.
Sure, The Odysseyfell to No. 3 with $7.4 million domestically and $34.4 million around the world. But that’s after an astonishing nine weeks in theaters. The star-studded adaptation of Homer’s seafaring epic currently boasts over $600 million in the former market, placing it second behind Brand New Dayin the overall domestic leaderboard for 2026, and a whopping $1.68 billion in the latter market — ditto on the global rankings.
As for Brand New Day, Holland’s fourth outing as the web-slinger has shattered records virtually every week since its early August opening. The film added $8.4 million domestically and $27.4 million globally this weekend, making for $935.1 million overall in the former market and $2.45 billion in the latter.
Bier, Warners, and even Kidman and Bullock (who serve as producers) certainly didn’t expect their sister witches to seriously contend with a behemoth IP like Spider-Man. But $46 million is a worrying start for a film made on an estimated $75 million budget, especially considering that the cost of the film’s marketing blitz isn’t factored into that estimate.
But all may not be lost for Practical Magic 2. It’s sure to recoup at least its budget within the next couple weeks, and as Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s Head of Marketplace Trends, noted in a Sunday interview with AP, “It’s not necessarily about that opening weekend… Weekend two will tell the tale, no question about it.” Practical Magic 2is “the kind of movie that you can build an evening at the movie theater around with your friends,” one that may find a lasting place at the movieplex.
Elsewhere on the weekend’s box office leaderboards, the independent Christian outfit Angel Studios misfired with Runner, a thriller starring Alan Ritchson as a former soldier racing to save a child’s life as a drug cartel closes in. The film opened to $6.6 million domestically atop a budget estimated between $35-45 million.
Coyote vs. Acme, however, once seen as little more than a victim of studio cruelty, has proven an enduring hit, adding another $6.2 million to its domestic coffers, which now reach $47.7 million.
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Next week, Zach Cregger returns just over a year after his bizarro Weaponsbecame a centerpiece of the 2025 horror conversation. His take on Resident Evilwill play against Ethan Hawke’s historical drama The Weight— as well as Practical Magic 2, Brand New Day, and The Odyssey, of course, for the box office gold.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
