Practical Magic 2 topped the North American box office in its debut weekend, but the number attached to that win came in well below what Warner Bros. Was hoping for. The Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman sequel opened to $30 million domestically, according to JoBlo, alongside another $16 million overseas. That's roughly $10 million short of the studio's own expectations, which were already sitting at the lower end of trade forecasts before release.

Early signs on Friday had looked better. Koimoi reported the film grossed $13 million on its first day, including $4.7 million from Thursday previews, a number that nearly matched the entire three-day opening weekend of the 1998 original, which took in $13.1 million over its first weekend. Based on that Friday pace, Koimoi's initial read had the weekend settling between $30 and $35 million, down from projections of $40-50 million floated ahead of release. The final domestic tally landed right at the bottom of that range.

The audience seems to like it more than the trade did going in. Practical Magic 2 is sitting at a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes' Popcornmeter against a 37% critics' rating, the kind of gap that studios usually bet on for weekend-to-weekend holds. Whether that audience enthusiasm translates into a longer theatrical run is the open question now.

A rough year for Warner Bros. At the multiplex

JoBlo frames the number as part of a bigger pattern. Warner Bros. Had ridden a hot streak in the post-Labor Day slot the last two years, with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice pulling in $111 million and The Conjuring: Last Rites making $84 million in the same release window. Practical Magic 2 breaking that run isn't the disaster it might sound like on paper, though. The original film made just $46.7 million in its entire theatrical run back in 1998 and this one was made on a comparatively thrifty $75 million budget, so it should still turn a profit even without a blockbuster opening.

It did enough to beat the day-one numbers of Wuthering Heights, Mean Girls, The Lost City, The Proposal and Jungle Cruise, per Koimoi, and it comfortably cleared the weekend's other new arrivals, The Uprising and Runner, both of which opened in the $3-6 million range.

Directed by Susanne Bier, the film follows a family of witches across generations trying to break a curse that's kept them from love, with Bullock and Kidman reprising their roles from the original. It released in theatres on September 11.

The bigger test comes over the following two frames, when the audience score either translates into a soft-legs hold or the film falls off the way most horror-adjacent studio sequels do after their opening. Warner Bros. Will also want to know if word of mouth can push the domestic total past that $46.7 million lifetime number the original managed, given Practical Magic 2 has already nearly matched it in a single weekend.