Well, the witchy women did it. Practical Magic 2 topped the weekend box office, knocking Spider-Man: Brand New Day off the number one spot it's been sitting on for a while now. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman coming back to the Owens sisters almost 30 years later was apparently not a nostalgia trap. it was a full-on event.

I've been tracking this one since it opened and the turnout makes total sense. The original Practical Magic is one of those movies that never left. every autumn the whole thing cycles back through everyone's FYPs, the midnight garden scene, the tequila scene, Cop Without a Cause on loop. WB basically had a pre-loaded audience sitting there for decades and they finally cashed it in. My grandma always says the market decides what it wants and it wanted this.

And can we talk about Nicole Kidman's year? Lioness, this, and she's stealing scenes in both. Zoe Saldana's been carrying entire episodes of Lioness while Nicole swans in for four minutes and walks away with the whole show. Now she's got a number one movie too. straight up untouchable run.

The other story here is Alan Ritchson. His new movie landed high in its debut weekend, which is kind of wild when you remember he was a straight-to-Reacher guy for a minute there. The man has turned into an actual theatrical draw. I keep waiting for the Statham comparison to feel lazy but like... it doesn't. Big guy, reliable, audiences know exactly what they're buying. Except Ritchson keeps picking slightly weirder projects and it's working.

Spider-Man slipping to second isn't a disaster btw. Brand New Day has had a massive run, plus it was leaking all over the internet in August and still put up numbers, so the demand was never in question. Everything comes back to earth eventually. And the fact that it took a beloved 28-year-old sequel with a devoted fanbase to knock it down feels right. better than losing to some random fourth franchise entry nobody asked for.

September used to be a dead zone at the box office, the month where movies went to quietly disappear between summer and awards season. Not anymore. Between this, the horror stuff coming, and everything I flagged in my September preview, the calendar's just... continuous now. I'm not complaining, my watchlist is thriving.

If you haven't caught Practical Magic 2 yet, go with your mom or your group chat or both. It's hitting exactly the way the audience that kept the first one alive deserved, and the box office is just reflecting that back. Next weekend will tell us if it has legs or if Spider-Man takes the crown back, but either way, the witches won this round.