Practical Magic (1998)
Trivia
According to Sandra Bullock in the commentary, in the scene where Gillian and Sally get drunk with their aunts and they sling insults, the actresses actually got drunk. They were drinking some very bad tequila that Nicole Kidman brought.
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Spoilers (2)
The entire house was a specially built architectural shell that was torn down after filming. It was built on rented land, and even the blossoms on the trees are fake - made of silk.
An unexpected issue that director Griffin Dunne encountered was the number of takes the lead actresses needed to complete each scene. Sandra Bullock would generally finish in two or three takes. However, Nicole Kidman had just spent the previous eighteen months working with Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut (1999), and was now used to doing seventy or eighty takes for a single scene.
Aidan Quinn's character, Gary Hallet, has something called heterochromia iridum. Heterochromia (from the Latin "hetero" for different + "chromia" for color) iridium is a harmless condition in which one iris is colored partially or completely different than the other iris. Although it is fairly rare in humans, there are some celebrities with this condition, such as Kate Bosworth, Mila Kunis, and Jane Seymour to name a few.
The name of Sally's botanical shop is "Verbena". Verbena is a flowering plant that has long been associated with divine and supernatural forces.
Set on an island in New England, but filmed in the San Juan Strait, Washington on the west coast due to weather and financial reasons.
The character Jimmy Angelov was originally named Jimmy Hawkins, and was a Texas redneck. The part was re-written as Eastern European for Goran Visnjic after director Griffin Dunne saw him in Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) and Madonna's "Power of Goodbye" video.
According to co-writer Akiva Goldsman, the director's cut was a darker take on the material. Due to the marketing of Warner Bros. and extensive editing it finally ended up a different version. Goldsman lost his copy of the original cut.
When Aunt Frances (Stockard Channing) and Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest) are leaving the post office, you can clearly see the name "Maria's Island Post Office" on the wall behind them.
After bad reactions at a test screening, composer Michael Nyman's score was rejected at the last minute. It was called too European sounding and obtrusive. It was replaced with one by Alan Silvestri. The change was made so late that the soundtrack albums had already been pressed. As a result, the first batch to hit stores all had two suites of themes from Nyman's score. A few weeks later, a new version of the CD, with the same ISBN number, was made, replacing Nyman's tracks with music by Silvestri.
This movie takes place in a town on an island in New England, but neither the town nor the island is ever named, except for when the name of the "Maria's Island Post Office" was shown.
They all frequently refer to Maria as "Aunt Maria", but as she was pregnant when she was banished to the island, and they are all descended from her, she wouldn't be their aunt, but their many times great grandmother.
The town (main street) actually used is Coupeville, WA on Whidbey Island. The very distinctive long dock with red building jutting out into the bay gives it away.
Nicole Kidman also played a witch in Bewitched (2005).
Aunt Frances (Stockard Channing) and Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest) frequently wear clothing and styles that were popular in the early 20th century, suggesting that they really are much older than they appear to be (as some of the townsfolk imply).
Spoilers
The black dog that followed Sally's (Sandra Bullock's) husband Michael (Mark Feuerstein) on the day of his death was no accident. According to several cultural traditions (mainly those of the British isles and Latin America), a sign of impending death can take the form of a black dog.
In the scene where they lay Jimmy's dead body on the table to resurrect him, you can hear Nicole Kidman's Australian accent come through when she says, "Sally, watch his balls!" You can also see "Jimmy" break character and slightly smirk.
