‘Practical Magic 2’ Sparks Near $5 Million In Previews On Thursday – Box Office Update

Warner Bros and Alcon’s Practical Magic 2 is off to a solid start in previews with an estimated $3.5M to $4M after showtimes that began at 2PM.

Those figures are higher than the previews of Sandra Bullock’s romantic adventure pic Lost City ($2.5M, $31M 3-day opening) and the George Clooney and Julia Roberts romantic comedy, Ticket to Paradise ($1.1M previews, $16.5M opening). The preview cash is also a notch above Warner Bros/MRC’s Wuthering Heights $3M Thursday which turned into a $32.8M 3-day opening. Even if this $70M net production files an opening between $30M-$35M domestic, it’s not cursed. Practical Magic 2 will have the power of PLFs this weekend, notably Dolby Cinema. Alcon financed 50% of the Bullock and Nicole Kidman reteam.

Critics are harsh on the sequel at 36%, but they also tried to cast a bad spell on the original 1998 movie at 29% Rotten. That pic opened to No. 1 at $13.1M back on Oct. 16-18, 1998 and finaled at $46.7M domestic, and $94.4M worldwide with a B- CinemaScore (sometimes moviegoers in their CinemaScores can be harder on features based on novels). The international outlook for part 2 in 77 territories sans China is between $18M-$23M.

NEON’s Na Hong-jin directed and written sci-fi alien invasion movie, Hope, opened yesterday to $1.1M at 1,506 theaters. That included $305K in previews. The pic is expected to do the mid-single digits in its 5-day debut. The pic was a smash in its home country of South Korea grossing over $36M and ranking No. 1 two weekends in a row. Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander play aliens in the pic.

Also opening this weekend is Disney’s documentary Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger and Angel Studio’s Runner.

Tonight’s previews are estimates from sources. We’ll have the actual reported figure from Warner Bros in the AM.