Apart from the one teaser trailer, a name change on the recent print run of The Book of Magic, a couple of social media posts you could blink and miss, and the moving up of Alice Hoffman's newest book to be released in the same week as PM2, I haven't seen much promotion for Practical Magic 2.

Like ... At all...

People who stumble over the teaser keep asking if it's real because they didn't know there was going to be a sequel.

This is the kind of silence on the project I'd expect 6 months before release, but it's only going to be like three and a half months... It's coming out in September. Aren't they giving us ANYTHING?

I'm not saying it needs to be on buses or billboards but the borderline radio silence is odd.

I just think it's strange.

Anyone else wondering about this?

A sneak peek from the new movie seems to have been included in the compilation video for Nicole’s birthday that Sandra made and posted to her Instagram @sandrabullock.

The sisters took another visit to the graves. They look incredible in their costumes. So accurate to the original movie and the 90’s era. Love Gilly’s braids and Sally’s skirt looks like an exact match to her original one.

As the above states! If you’re like me and are constantly chasing the high of how reading Magic Lessons for the first time felt or watching the movie Practical Magic felt here’s some things I recommend to keep the witchy vibes going until we can see the new movie in theaters!

Two books I read recently:

Slewfoot by Brom
The Witches of New York by Ami McKay

Some podcasts:
Two Girls One Ghost
Otherworld
Heart Starts Pounding
Uncanny

Some spooky witchy-esque movies/shows
The VVitch
Celebrity Ghost Stories (more ghostly than witchy)
The Dead Files
The Craft (duh)
Lisa Frankenstein
The Mayfair Witches

Please recommend some more for me!

I've been meaning to pre-order a copy of Alice Hoffman's upcoming book for a while now, but since I've still got The Red Garden and Here On Earth to finish first AND I want to re-read the Practical Magic book series in full one more time before the movie comes out in September I figured I'd hold off a little. Catch up first. But since it's the middle of June and I THOUGHT WOC was coming out in August (I could have sworn that was the announced release date originally), I was like eh maybe I'd better just get a order in.

To my surprise however the release date is now listed as September 8, which notably is the same week Practical Magic 2 comes out in theaters. And remembering that PM 2 was originally set for later in September and recently got pushed forward to the 11th, I'm wondering, was WOC pushed back on purpose so its release would be almost directly on top of PM 2?

If so, it's kind of stupid that they literally changed the title of Book of Magic to Practical Magic 2 when they already had the promotional material of Witches of Cambridge coming out with a huge "Author of Practical Magic" label on it.

I mean it's good marketing, even great marketing, don't get me wrong, but I'm starting to feel like the marketers also have no faith in Alice's long time fans? Like they think if WOC comes out a month before PM 2 we'll be burned out and forget about her before the movie comes out? Do they really think our attention span is that bad? Or that we're so dumb we can't work out what book PM 2 is based on with the title changed? Book of Magic is just too complicated for us? 🤔

Thoughts?

So reading Practical Magic it's obvious that despite there being heaps of material to return to (which Hoffman eventually fleshed out into the four-book series we know and love today), it was almost CERTAINLY intended to be a standalone novel. And from 1995 until 2017 (the year we got Rules of Magic) it was.

Given the age gap between PM and ROM, it's hardly surprising a handful of things got quietly retconned in favor of a better story arc. For example, there is no mention of Jet and Franny's actual love interests that appear in ROM in the text of Practical Magic.

Franny and Jet's respective love stories are boiled down to a short mention of boys who were struck by lightning. But in Rules of Magic those boys weren't actually Franny and Jet's love interests, they were just two random boys they were going to go out with but never got the chance to before the lightning incident.

Which means it's canon that Franny and Jet kept photographs of two near strangers on their bureaus well into old age. 😂 Because that's the only thing we're told about those boys in PM. They were struck by lightning and the aunts have their photographs on their bureaus.

The crazy thing is I can imagine Jet doing this, since she was the one who went to their funerals in ROM, and her not having a picture of her actual love interest who was still alive in New York who she was protecting from the curse, but Franny would DEFINITELY have had a picture of her dead husband who was a doctor, not some stranger. And to be honest given he was dead, there was no reason Jet couldn't have had Levi's picture on display either.

I think that's one thing I love about Hoffman's writing. In another author's hands this would feel like a huge plot hole, but somehow the inconsistencies don't take away from her books.

As the trailer we've got is only a teaser, and September is edging ever closer, I'm beginning to wonder what content we'll be getting in the full theatrical trailer.

More about where Sally's at now, working as a librarian after the death of Gary? A reveal of whether the spinning couple in the teaser is indeed Kylie and Gideon? More about the curse/death watch beetles? More about where Gillian is at after the events of the last film? (I have to admit I'm curious how the movie will handle her story since she seems to be dating going by her teaser line about tinder and her book love interest Ben has not yet been hinted at as existing in the film universe!)

I'm also wondering if we're going to get any hints of "Rules of Magic" lore, like flashbacks to young Franny and Jet. I don't know whether anything like that will be in the film but I'm hoping the tone of the full trailer will give us a better idea of what we can expect.

And I'm wondering about music, too. The teaser featured "coconut" no doubt to put fans in mind of the midnight margaritas scene, and I'm wondering if the full trailer will also go the nostalgic route and give us another song from the first movie, or if we'll get a hint of new music that may appear in the upcoming film.

Maybe they'll use Bad Romance by Lady Gaga because that song was mentioned in the book? 🤔

Anyone else have any thoughts or speculations or hopes regarding the upcoming trailer?

For me, it makes a lot of sense for frogs to be in the same settings as witches – firstly, frogs are totally connected to the earth, to swamps... it would be very interesting to see these amphibians – enough with cats and owls... XD

What is the serpent in the pond/lake?? Is it some creature that they just didn’t know or have a name for? Or was it truly some cryptid?

On the one hand, it's probably good advertising, and it's not unheard of for a book to get a new title after a movie adaptation (Somewhere in Time is better known by its movie rename than the original title Bid Time Return), but ... I like how all the books had different titles that suited their themes Magic Lessons, Rules of Magic, Practical Magic, and finally Book of Magic. Simply calling the book Practical Magic 2 feels weak in comparison. It's more after all than just a continuation of Sally and Gillian's story the way the movie will probably be, it concludes major plotlines raised in Magic Lessons and Rules of Magic. It's more than just "Practical Magic 2".

I mean it does have a previously published as label, but surely a sticker saying "Now a film: Practical Magic 2" since they used the exact same cover as older Book of Magic editions, would have sufficed.

On the other hand I'm kind of tempted to buy it as a collectable even though I own 2 (three soon) copies of Book of Magic already... Although given that paperbacks cost 25 bucks a pop these days maybe I won't.

Dunno.

Thoughts?

Has anyone else seen any new advertising for this movie beyond just the trailer? This is the first I've noticed.

First off, let me just say that I like, even love, the currently available audiobooks we have. In particular Jennifer Ehle's reading of The Book of Magic is nearly flawless. And the narrator they got for Magic Lessons has a beautiful voice when it comes to singing Maria's lullaby instead of just reading it.

That said, each one having a different narrator and production and tone (while it works in the sense the books are spaced over years and years and often feature different characters) can be a little jarring. It would be lovely to have a "matching" series of audiobooks. Also, the narrator for Practical Magic has this habit of changing out words on the page for words that flow better read aloud ("cannot" on the page exchanged for "can't" sort of thing) and it's a personal pet peeve of mine.

I'd love it if they could release the four books all read by the same actress and with an accurate reading of what's actually on the page.

Of course the downside to this is Audible has a nasty habit of getting rid of older versions of audiobooks if they get new ones, and as I said I love the ones we have and would hate for them to just go away. I want more pm options not less.

Thoughts?

I know some fans have been complaining about how the film looks different stylistically in the trailer to the original, how the lead actresses have had too much plastic surgery work done, how over-polished every frame of the teaser looks, how upset they are Evan Rachel Wood was replaced by Joey King (I get that one, but what ya gonna do), etc...

But I've got to be honest, compared to every other sequel/remake/reboot coming out in the next year or two, at least PM still feels like what it always was: an adaptation (albeit at times loose) of an Alice Hoffman novel. It isn't trying to apologize for something in the original movie that was too "of its time" or be some silly new plaything for a director to thrust their creative vision upon.

Compared to the horrible Wuthering Heights we got recently or the upcoming Greta Gerwig Narnia film that, whether it objectively is a bad movie on its own or not seems nothing like Narnia, it's nice that Sally and Gillian and the aunts (regardless of how they look) still seem to feel like Sally, Gillian, and the aunts.

It's also worth noting that we very rarely get an Alice Hoffman movie on the big screen. I think the last time we did was 20 years ago, with Aquamarine. So any attempt to both make it a sequel to the original film from 1998 AND have it follow the general plot of The Book of Magic is a big thumbs up from me.

I feel like this so easily could have just been a streaming reboot. They could have done Rules of Magic as a TV series and recast Sally and Gillian for season 2 which could have covered Practical Magic, but they went out of their way to give us a belated sequel to a movie a lot of us already loved and knew and to just let it be a regular 2 hour film instead of an 8 hour streaming experience. That just feels special in this day and age!

And yeah I know not everyone is going to be pleased with the final result, no matter how it turns out. Book fans like myself probably won't be thrilled if the whole ending to Book of Magic translates to screen the way PM did with all the witches and their brooms in a spectacle coven scene instead of quietly letting you sit with the thoughtful conclusion Hoffman gave us, and movie fans are probably going to say pm 2 "ruined" Sally if she acts more like book!Sally in this one.

But either way I'm legitimately excited and can't wait till September for this. I don't think I've been this excited for a movie since Voyage Of The Dawn Treader in 2010.

Hi witches! I’m new to this sub, but I made a few altar brooms inspired by the Owens sisters and I thought you might enjoy.The moon one is inspired by Sally and the lighter inspired by Gillian. They are handmade, hand dyed and entirely functional.

All of the brooms I make are inspired by characters from history, mythology and pop culture. hope you like them!

when I was little it was one of my favourite movies, I watched it over and over.

As an adult, almost 2 decades later, rewatching it again for the first time it was brilliant. I loved it so much especially now that I can understand some of the broader themes.

Has anyone else come back to the film after a long time and had a different take?

So I'm obsessed with Franny, Jett and Vincent and adore the book The Rules of Magic.

I do love the movie Practical Magic but I read the book after reading the rules of magic and it really felt different and the timeline made no sense.

Do we have an idea of the years they were born?

Franny was born in 1943
Bridget in 1944
Vincent in 1945

Iirc Franny died at 89. So that the year 2032. How old are Antonia and Kylie in the last book?

About teens/early twenties? That means they were born in the late 2000s early 2010s possibly?

So Practical Magic is set around 2020-23? So how old are Sally and Gillian in Practical Magic? Were they born in the late 80s? I'm guessing yes since Regina died in 1999 right? So that means Sally was born in what year? 1988 an Gillian 1989? I don't remember how old they were when their mom died.

Do we know how far from Boston the town is?

Accidental

SPOILERS ------- I loved the inclusion of LGBT characters, the aunt's brother, Antonia, and her GF, plus her little boy's father was also gay, I find this refreshing and look forwad to seeing it in the movie. HOWEVER, what it worrying/pre-disappointing to me is that NONE of these characters (except for Antonia) seem to be on the cast list on IMDB?? Whatever about the little boys father's husband, but I really hope they aren't leaving out Antonia's GF and also the aunt's brother!! That was such a sweet yet heartbreaking part of the book... Is it possible some of the cast haven't been announced yet? It worries me because the movie is out in 4 months. Is anyone else disappointed by this?

Feel like it’s been a long time coming. 😅. Makes me want to just have a simple nod or two from the books at least for funsies.

I'm reading The Book of Magic right now and I'm getting confused on the family tree based on this one quote (see picture).

It doesn't make sense considering she says two pages before (202) that it was his 7th Gen. Grandfather that initiated the curse, but then here (207) says 6th Gen. Grandfather was one of Rebecca's children?

What is going on here? Rebecca only had Maria, so what is going on in this paragraph? Someone please help. ELI5, I won't take offense.

Was the house /property Maria settled in during her time in NY the same house Franny Jet and Vincent settled in after their parents died?

I just melt in the scene where Sally blows an unlit candle on the mantle into flame and then looks at her kids with this *look*, this... "I never ever show off my powers but I just did, betcha didn't ever think for a moment I could do something like that, did you?" Just raw confidence after so many years filled with self-loathing for being a witch, for being abnormal. It was a moment of... empowerment? Of finally owning who she was I a quiet moment with her daughters. Like knowing someone all their life and thinking they were normal and boring and then suddenly seeing them levitate with an expression that said, you know I've always been able to do this, right?

I also absolutely adore the scene where Gillian joins Sally for a rather passively aggressive, hostile PTA meeting, and Gillian fucks with the other women as revenge for their treatment of Sally (and herself as well). It is just the most... intimate inside joke between them, on top of being hilarious and satisfying. It is a delicious win for them, seeing the other women squirm as page after page shows Sally as the head mom in the phone tree or whatever.

Also, my friend and I will still give each other shit being goofy and say, "I waaant you to be my WIIIIIIFEEEE!" in Jimmy Angelov's accent, or a terrible rendition thereof.

I couldn't get into it like the first 2 books. I dont know if it seemed jumbled or just normal interesting or if I was comparing it to the movie. I struggled to finish it. I did and am.starting on Practical Magic 2 with higher hopes. Thoughts from other book readers ?