Warner Bros.’ Box Office Woes Continue as ‘Practical Magic 2’ Bombs With Just $46 Million Worldwide

Not every legacy sequel gets a triumphant homecoming, and 2026 has been an especially rough year for one particular studio trying to recapture old magic. Warner Bros. entered the year hoping to build on the momentum of a strong 2025, but instead has found itself explaining away one disappointment after another.

That pattern continued with ‘Practical Magic 2,’ the long-awaited reunion of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as witch sisters Sally and Gillian Owens. Despite carrying two of Hollywood’s most bankable stars and nearly three decades of cult goodwill behind the original film, the sequel’s opening weekend numbers landed well below expectations.

The film debuted to just $46 million at the global box office, a soft start against its reported $75 million production budget. Using the industry’s standard rule of thumb that a film typically needs to gross roughly two and a half times its budget to break even once marketing costs are factored in, ‘Practical Magic 2’ would need at least $180 million worldwide just to reach that threshold, a target its opening weekend puts firmly out of easy reach.

This isn’t an isolated stumble for the studio this year. Earlier in 2026, Warner Bros. released ‘The Bride!,’ which flatlined with just $23 million worldwide against a $90 million budget, and followed that with ‘Supergirl,’ the DC Studios follow-up to the well-received ‘Superman’ that opened to roughly $68 million globally against a production budget reportedly between $170 million and $186 million. Depending on the report, industry estimates have placed Supergirl’s eventual losses anywhere from $85 million to well over $100 million.

The contrast becomes even sharper when placed next to how efficiently other studios have been operating in the same space. Sony and Blumhouse’s ‘Insidious: Out of the Further’ opened just weeks earlier to $60.3 million globally on a production budget of only $18 million, instantly putting the horror sequel in profitable territory despite modest reviews and far less star power behind it.

WARNER BROS bombing streak continues as PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 debuts with only $46M worldwide. How bad is this? With a $75M budget, it’d need at least $180M to break even. For comparison, Blumhouse’s INSIDIOUS 6 cost Sony $18M and debuted with $60M globally. https://t.co/6llrHXliF4

— Global Box Office (@GlobalBoxOffice) September 13, 2026

That gap illustrates a broader tension playing out across the industry this year: nostalgia and star power alone no longer guarantee a profitable opening, while smaller, cheaply produced genre films with built-in fanbases continue to punch well above their budgets. Warner Bros. had two comparatively modest wins earlier in the year with February’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ and April’s ‘The Mummy,’ but neither was enough to offset the larger losses piling up elsewhere on the release calendar.

For ‘Practical Magic 2’ specifically, the studio does have some reason for cautious optimism. Audience scores for the film have remained notably stronger than its critical reception, with strong marks on CinemaScore and audience-driven review aggregators suggesting the built-in millennial and Gen X fanbase that turned the original into a slow-burn cult classic may still show up in the weeks ahead.

The first trailer for ‘PRACTICAL MAGIC 2’ has been released.

In theaters on September 11. pic.twitter.com/PSzTJGn3AU

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) April 20, 2026

Whether that audience enthusiasm translates into the kind of legs needed to claw back toward profitability remains to be seen. The original 1998 film, after all, underperformed at launch before becoming a beloved staple through home video and cable reruns over the following decades, a trajectory Warner Bros. is almost certainly hoping this sequel can replicate in some form.

For now, though, the numbers paint a clear picture of a studio still searching for its footing after a string of expensive miscalculations. With several more high-profile releases still on the calendar for the rest of the year, all eyes will be on whether Warner Bros. can turn its fortunes around before 2026 closes out.

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