Critics gave Practical Magic 2 a 39%. Verified ticket buyers gave it 92%. The conversation says 65, and climbing.
Practical Magic 2 opened on September 10 with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back as Sally and Gillian Owens, twenty-eight years after the original, and Susanne Bier directing. Critics were not kind. On Rotten Tomatoes the film sits at 39% from 125 reviews, a Rotten score. The site's Popcornmeter, which counts people who bought a ticket through its partner and chose to rate, sits at 92% from more than a thousand ratings. Fifty-three points separate the two, which is about as wide as that gap gets.
We measure neither. We measure what people say about a film in public social media conversations, scored nightly, with the sample size and confidence beside every number, and weighted toward people who say they have seen it. Nobody clicks a star and nobody is selected by a ticket purchase. Here is what opening weekend looked like in that data.
From 49 to 65 in five mornings
The first morning read, on Thursday, was a 49 from 105 early reactions. Two days before release the conversation had doubled to 125 reactions in a day and split exactly down the middle, 39 positive to 39 negative, and that is where the 49 came from. Then the film went on sale. Friday morning it was 58 from 284 reactions. Saturday, 60 from 537. Sunday, 62 from 745. This morning it is 65 from 939 reactions at very high confidence, and it has not had a down day.
Launch scores usually cool as the wider crowd weighs in, because the first people through the door are the most eager. This one warmed, and the reason is visible in who was talking. On Thursday a quarter of the reactions came from people who said they had seen the film. By Saturday it was nearly half. People who have seen it run 52% positive and 25% negative; the general chatter around it runs 28% positive. The more the conversation filled with people coming out of the theater, the better the number got.
Before release the film carried a 70, locked on release day from 1,198 pre-release reactions. It is five points short of that today, still climbing, and the pre-release read is the number to watch it against over the second weekend.
Three yardsticks, one film
Put the three measures side by side on the same footing, the share of verdicts that are positive, and they tell three different stories. Critics: 39%. The public conversation: 57%, with 15% mixed and 28% negative, which is the 65. Verified ticket buyers who chose to rate: 92%. Ours sits 18 points above the critics and 35 below the opt-in rating, and the reason is what each group is. Critics review the film they were sent. The Popcornmeter counts people who liked a film enough to buy a ticket and then liked it enough to go back and say so. A public conversation includes the people who shrugged, and for this film there are a lot of them: 520 of the reactions since release were neither clearly for it nor against it, and the negative share among people who did see it is one in four.
Neither the critics nor the raters are wrong about their own group. The middle is just where most of the audience actually lives, and that is what a 65 is.
What people praise, and the one thing they do not
The praise is about the people on screen. Acting scores 74 across 133 mentions, humor 76 across 49, visuals 69 across 50. Lee Pace, as Ian Wright, is the best-liked name in the whole conversation at 72% positive from 53 mentions. Nicole Kidman runs 58% positive across 137 mentions and Sandra Bullock 54% across 159, the two most discussed people in the film, both liked more than not, neither adored. Dianne Wiest's return lands at 57% from 23.
The new generation is not landing. Joey King, as Kylie, is at 34% positive from 29 mentions, and Maisie Williams, as Antonia, at 35% from 26. Susanne Bier draws 27% from a small 11 mentions, which is a whisper, not a verdict.
And the story is the soft spot, the way it was for the critics. It is the most discussed aspect of the film by a wide margin, 315 mentions, and it scores 57. Originality scores 33 from 110 mentions and pacing 28 from 65. People are not saying the film is bad. They are saying they have seen it before and it takes its time. That is a familiar complaint about a legacy sequel, and it is exactly the complaint the 39% is made of, said more gently by people who paid to be there.
The weekend by day
Thursday, the first full day, drew 193 relevant reactions. Friday was the biggest day at 292, Saturday held 266, and Sunday 202. The negative share stayed flat all weekend, between one in six and one in five reactions each day. What moved the score was not people getting kinder; it was more of the conversation coming from people who had actually seen the film, and those people liked it better than the crowd talking about it from outside.
The verdict so far
A 65 at very high confidence from 939 reactions, rising every morning, five points under what people expected before release, and sitting almost exactly halfway between a Rotten critics score and a rapturous ticket-buyer rating. The stars are the reason to go, and nearly everyone says so. The story is the reason the number is not higher, and nearly everyone says that too. If the climb continues through the second weekend it will pass the pre-release 70. The score updates every night.
Practical Magic 2's score updates every night as new reactions come in. The live number, the trend, and the full breakdown: See Practical Magic 2's live Real Score