The new Practical Magic is built heavily around the return of the Owens family.

Sandra Bullock is back as Sally, Nicole Kidman returns as Gillian, while Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing reprise Aunt Jet and Aunt Frances.

Sally's daughters, however, have new performers. Joey King now plays Kylie Owens and Maisie Williams takes over as Antonia.

Evan Rachel Wood had actively asked to come back

Wood played Kylie in the 1998 film when she was still a child actor.

As the sequel moved forward, she made clear that she was interested in returning.

She says she offered to participate even if the production only wanted her for one scene or one line.

Instead, she was told that Kylie was being recast.

Wood has repeatedly stressed that her absence was not her decision and that she would have been happy to rejoin the franchise.

Wood says Joey King was the one person who reached out

The situation became a larger conversation during the sequel's promotional campaign.

Wood wrote on Instagram that she particularly appreciated King contacting her directly.

According to Wood, nobody who had worked on the original film reached out to her about the change.

She described King warmly and did not place responsibility for the recasting on her replacement.

King later confirmed that the two had spoken and said she was grateful for Wood's support of both her and the new cast.

Antonia was recast too

Kylie is not the only member of Sally's younger generation to look different this time.

Alexandra Artrip played Kylie's younger sister Antonia in the original film.

Artrip later left acting, but she addressed the sequel after some fans began calling for a boycott because both daughters had been recast.

She asked people not to turn the situation into negativity toward the new movie and encouraged viewers to give it a chance.

Maisie Williams now plays Antonia.

Why recast the daughters when so many original actors returned?

That contrast is what made the decision especially noticeable.

Practical Magic 2 is explicitly structured as a legacy sequel. Bullock and Kidman both return and produce, while Wiest and Channing also reprise their original characters.

At the same time, the new story gives Sally's adult daughters significantly more responsibility and uses them as part of a generational handoff.

Casting King and Williams therefore also reshapes those characters for the sequel's version of the Owens family.

Wood later acknowledged that after reading Alice Hoffman's The Book of Magic, she could see that the filmmakers were not adapting the novel exactly as she expected and that their approach may explain why her return did not fit their version.

The sequel loosely draws from The Book of Magic

Susanne Bier directs Practical Magic 2 from a screenplay credited to Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel.

The movie draws from Hoffman's 2021 novel The Book of Magic without treating every element as a literal screen adaptation.

Sally and Gillian once again confront the curse hanging over the Owens women and their love lives, while the adult Kylie and Antonia become part of the family's attempt to finally break it.

Lee Pace, Xolo Maridueña and Solly McLeod are also among the new cast additions.

The sequel is explicitly about passing the magic forward

Bullock and Kidman have described the new film as a story about sisterhood and generational legacy.

Twenty-eight years after the original, returning to the Owens family means looking beyond Sally and Gillian and toward what their daughters inherit from them.

That is what makes Wood's absence so visible. Kylie remains central to the family, but the performer who first introduced her is no longer part of the continuation.

Practical Magic 2 began its international theatrical rollout on September 9, 2026 through Warner Bros. Pictures.