If you're going to make a film about witches, you better do your due diligence, and director Griffin Dunne thought he was doing just that when he hired a witch consultant to help with his movie Practical Magic. The movie, starring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, is not necessarily considered a success, despite resonating with female audiences, and according to an interview in Vulture, this witch consultant might be to blame.
"I thought she was a really intelligent person and I invited her to come to Los Angeles to observe the rehearsals with Sandy and Nicole," Dunne explained. However, once she arrived at her hotel, things took a turn for the worse.
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"You’re not going to buy me off with a hotel room," she apparently told a producer. "I want a percentage of the film. I’m going to have my own Practical Magic cookbook....I want an additional $250,000 dollars."
When the producer refused, she told him that not only was she going to put a curse on him, she was putting a curse on the film, and Dunne himself.
"I get back to my office on the Warner Bros. lot and I listen to my voice-mail," he remembers. "How dare you sic that shrew on me?" she said in the message. "You think you can buy me off, well let me tell you something? There is a land of curses!" And then, she slipped into tongues.
"It was terrifying," Dunne continued. "I listened to as much as I could and then I hung up. Within minutes, Warner’s been served with papers. She’s suing Warner Bros."
The legal department was equally as perturbed by the tape, and ended up just paying her off in hopes the problem would disappear.
"I don’t give the curse any power, but at the same time, I did come to think that somehow a little stink was put on the movie," Dunne reflected. "It took time for that stink to go away."
With this spooky story in mind, it sounds like it's time to give Practical Magic a second chance.
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