Dear Gossips,

CinemaCon is happening this week in Las Vegas, the annual gathering of theatre owners where Hollywood studios present their upcoming projects, typically in the blockbuster category. This is an event for MOVIE STARS, which is why after all these years, and perhaps increasingly so, I love covering it. Because it’s not about influencers and TikTokkers, it’s about the biggest names in movies… at a time when we’re so worried about movies, whether or not people will keep seeing them, whether or not it will continue to be a viable artform.

I get that there are many barriers to leaving your home and going to the movies these days, cost being the most prohibitive factor. No doubt, the industry does need to figure out how to make movie-going more accessible, for people who want to see all kinds of movies and not just the big budget ones. But my point in this post is about the stars who are in movies, and the unique kind of glamour and excitement they bring with them.

We’ve spent the last decade debating whether or not Movie Stars are even made anymore. Meanwhile a new YouTube/TikTok star emerges every day. What I have continued to find interesting is that, now that YouTube has been around for 20+ years, and has become the new legacy media of new media in general, almost all of the so-called stars who pop off on new media eventually want validation from old legacy media. It’s as if even they are cosigning that traditional celebrity remains on a higher hierarchical level in the fame game.

Which brings us back to CinemaCon where WarnerBros presented last night, featuring a heavyweight slate of Movie Stars, including Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman who were there to promote Practical Magic 2. I did not put enough excitement in that sentence: THEY WERE THERE TO PROMOTE PRACTICAL MAGIC 2.

It’s impossible to adequately express how much we love this movie – and by “we” I mean a whole generation of us who have watched the first film over and over again.

“There’s a few things I’ve learned in life: always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love whenever you can.”

I always cry a little when I get to the end and hear Sandra deliver this voiceover, softly, almost like she was lying down when she was doing it. And when you consider the parallels between Sandy and her character, Sally, now… it’s almost too much. Sally lost her husband. It’s been two and a half years since Sandy lost her partner, Bryan Randall. Sally has two kids, Sandy has two kids. Sally was supported by her family of witches, including her sister Gillian. Sandy is part of her own sisterhood IRL (some of them are famous, like Jennifer Aniston, and many are not), and now Sandy’s returned to this story, alongside Nicole Kidman, bringing the magic back to Vegas. In fact, they came to this place… for magic.

Practical Magic 2 opens in theatres September 18. This, then, is early promotion, and the promotion begins not only with Sandy and Nicole at CinemaCon but also online. Sandra Bullock has joined Instagram.

There is no studio executive, no marketing and communications expert, who can pressure Sandra Bullock into doing social media if she doesn’t have to. If she’s on IG it’s because she wants to be, she’s ready to be, and she’s already having fun with it, leaving comments on other celebrity accounts, like Channing Tatum and Joey King’s posts. Already she’s at 4.5 million followers as of this writing. It’ll be interesting to see how she engages with it over the next few months as we approach the release date.

As for Nicole, there’s a little gossip here too. Because both Practical Magic 2 and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger are Warner Bros titles. The star of Digger was introduced to the audience as “the biggest movie star in the world”, Tom Cruise. I’d love to know about the logistics when they were planning this, and whether or not someone on the team was like… let’s make sure that the Practical Magic part and the Digger moment are far apart, so as to not risk any crossover in the green room. More on Tom Cruise’s appearance at CinemaCon later. For now, speaking of backstage, here’s a cute moment with Sandy and Nicole when Sandy sees a German shepherd who has a job to do and should not be distracted so it’s Nicole who has to restrain Sandy.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock attend Warner Bros. "The Big Picture" CinemaCon 2026 at Caesars Palace on April 14, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada

Photo credits:  Matt Baron/BEI/Rob Latour/Shutterstock, MEGA/WENN

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