Andrew Fleming’s 1996 flick The Craft has endured as a cult favorite for over a quarter of a century, and continually manages to find a new audience with each following generation. It was a decent sized box office hit at the time after earning over $55 million against a production budget of $15 million, but it wasn’t until the supernatural tale arrived on home video that it really began to take off in terms of popularity.
A darker spin on the standard teen comedy formula, there was plenty of originality to be found and enjoyment to be derived from The Craft, but there was never much interest in making a sequel. However, because we live in an age where every property with any sort of cultural cache or name recognition will almost inevitably be remade, rebooted or sequelized at some stage, The Craft: Legacy will arrive on VOD next week (October 28th) just in time for Halloween.
Horror stalwarts and reliable hit factory Blumhouse are the architects behind the standalone sequel that exists almost completely separately from the original, which isn’t surprising when the stars of the 1996 effort like Neve Campbell admitted that they wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Writer, director, actress and producer Zoe Lister-Jones tackled the script and stepped behind the camera for The Craft: Legacy, and the film has now officially been rated PG-13 for “thematic elements, crude and sexual content, language and brief drug material.”
While that isn’t surprising given that the sequel is aiming to appeal to the widest possible audience, the first installment was rated R and the more family-friendly offering might put off longtime fans that weren’t particularly sold on the idea in the first place and reacted to The Craft: Legacy trailer with nothing more than an apathetic shrug.