From ‘Heathers’ to ‘Practical Magic 2,’ Denise Di Novi Keeps Her Filmmaking Personal

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In his new book “Power Surge: Conglomerate Hollywood and the Studio System’s Last Hurrah,” film historian Thomas Schatz convincingly argues for 1989-2004 as the last golden age of American filmmaking, a time in which personal expression and corporate imperatives intersected to create some of the greatest movies ever made, from “sex, lies and videotape” to “The Lord of the Rings.” It’s probably not entirely a coincidence that the year Schatz denotes as marking the beginning of that golden age, 1989, was also the year that saw Denise Di Novi make her solo producing debut with the release of “Heathers.” Bold, brilliant, and hilarious, “Heathers” was the kind of movie Schatz celebrates in his book, a piece of intelligent mainstream escapism that’s as accessible as it is provocative. Although Di Novi’s budgets would increase as she became a high profile studio producer on films like “Batman Returns,” “Little Women” (both the 1994 and 2019 versions), and “Crazy Stupid Love,” the guiding principles would remain the same as on “Heathers.” A producer motivated almost exclusively by her passion and her taste (she says she’s only done one movie purely for the fee, though she refuses to say which one that was), Di Novi is remarkably consistent in her ability to shepherd smart and stylish entertainments to the screen with minimal compromises. Di Novi’s latest film, “Practical Magic 2,” marks a return to one of her most beloved films — though not one that was so appreciated when it came out in 1998. “The first movie was not successful, and it was actually vilified by critics,” Di Novi said. “It just did okay at the box office.” Di Novi always loved “Practical Magic,” however, and over the years saw its fan base steadily increase in size until the yearning for a sequel became apparent on social media. “It started to hit a crescendo four or five years ago,” Di Novi said. “Sandy [Bullock] and Nicole [Kidman] would be on the red carpet, and fans would ask them all the time, ‘When are you going to do ‘Practical Magic 2?'” Although Di Novi thought it was “a pipe dream” to imagine getting the stars back together for a follow-up, she eventually found both Bullock and Kidman were open to the idea if they could find something new to say — a problem more or less solved by author Alice Hoffman, who had already written a sequel that Di Novi loved. With Bullock and Kidman on board, Di Novi pitched the project to Warner boss Pam Abdy, who she credits with seeing the potential in a “Practical Magic” sequel. “She is very plugged into the zeitgeist and knew that there was an audience that wanted this movie,” Di Novi said. “She really educated everybody at Warners and fought to get the movie made.” Di Novi had wanted to make a “Practical Magic” sequel for years, but at long last its time had come. The result of Abdy’s campaigning and Di Novi’s tenacity is that rare sequel that improves upon and deepens the impact of the original; in her review, IndieWire’s Alison Foreman called it spellbinding and heartbreaking, and it’s to the movie’s credit that these qualities coexist with more laugh-out-loud moments of physical and verbal comedy than anything else currently in theaters. That kind of genre-shifting has always been a hallmark of Di Novi’s work, however, going back to her string of memorable collaborations with director Tim Burton (“Edward Scissorhands,” “Batman Returns,” “Ed Wood”) and that audacious 1989 debut with “Heathers.” At the time she produced “Heathers,” Di Novi had plenty of production experience working on Canadian tax shelter movies; many of them were never even released, but a few of them — like David Cronenberg’s “Scanners” — became classics. Working in the Canadian film industry connected Di Novi with producer and executive Robert Rehme, and when he took over New World Pictures after Roger Corman sold it in the 1980s, he offered Di Novi a producing deal. “It was a period where they wanted young filmmakers, because that’s who was going to the movies,” Di Novi said. She had become aware of director Michael Lehmann thanks to his acclaimed USC student film “Beaver Gets a Boner” and wanted to work with him, and when she discovered Daniel Waters’ one-of-a-kind high school comedy (a script so dark that at times it actually seemed to be in favor of teen suicide, or at least murder), she knew she had the right project. “Dan was this genius who knew every line of dialogue from every movie ever made,” Di Novi said. “I went to New World with the script and they said I could have two million dollars to make it — which was a nice amount of money — if I could get Winona Ryder. So we got Winona Ryder, we didn’t know what the heck we were doing, and we made a movie. It was an incredible stroke of luck because it just catapulted me into being a producer.” It also led to several key creative relationships for Di Novi. After casting Ryder at the studio’s behest, Di Novi hit it off with the actor, and their rapport led to one of Di Novi’s key early partnerships. “Tim Burton was looking for a producing partner, and he did not want the kinds of young studio execs he was being introduced to,” Di Novi said. “Winona was really good friends with him from ‘Beetlejuice,’ so we just had lunch at the Sunset Marquis one day and that was it. We partnered for many years.” When Di Novi worked with Burton on “Batman Returns,” she brought Waters into the fold as a writer and created another of her sequels that improved upon its predecessor. She later reunited with Waters for his directorial debut, the hilarious and criminally underrated “Happy Campers.” A summer camp comedy every bit as literate and tasteless as “Heathers,” it’s a movie that should have catapulted Waters to the top ranks of comic writer-directors — but it barely got released, quietly going straight to DVD over a year after its Sundance premiere. “That was really heartbreaking,” Di Novi said, noting that every time one of her movies fails to find an audience it feels like a personal rejection. “I get very emotionally invested. I don’t have 10 movies shooting at the same time and five TV series. I’m not that type of producer. I’m usually focused on one or two things, so the rejection is incredibly painful. It’s like a broken heart. Halle Berry gave me the best advice; she said, ‘You never know how people are going to receive it. You have to just look at how you experience the process of making it.'” Berry was the star of Di Novi’s most infamous flop at the time of its release, “Catwoman.” “That movie was decimated beyond belief,” Di Novi said. “It was the kind of movie where people just found it delicious to talk about how bad it was.” Di Novi was shocked by the vitriol, and she should have been — not only is “Catwoman” not bad, in its visual inventiveness and the exuberance of Berry’s performance, it’s got more style, heat, and wit than most of the more well-regarded comic book movies that have been released in the years since. “That’s why I hired Pitof, a French director,” Di Novi said. “Because I did not want the movie to be formulaic. But it kind of bit us in the ass that it wasn’t formulaic.” To Di Novi’s surprise, the movie has become embraced in recent years by Gen Z thanks to streaming and Tik Tok. “Young people love it, and they don’t care about the 20-year reviews. So you just have to keep in mind that these things live forever, and eventually there are people who do appreciate it.” Over the years, Di Novi became known in the industry as someone who not only worked successfully with important directors like Burton and Curtis Hanson, but could help directors on troubled productions. “There was a period when Warner Bros. put me on five or six movies to help out,” Di Novi said. “The famous one was ‘Max Max: Fury Road,’ which Charlize wrote about in her book. I worked with directors in a very supportive way, and everybody would always say to me, ‘You should direct.’ But I had two kids and was making so many movies as a producer, I made piece with the fact that I was not a director.” Then a director dropped out of “Unforgettable,” a thriller Di Novi was producing, and a studio executive suggested that Di Novi direct. “It was a lower budget movie — the lowest budget movie I had ever made — and I thought, ‘I’m probably never going to have this opportunity again if I don’t do this.'” The movie that resulted, in which Rosario Dawson plays a fiancée tormented by her lover’s ex-wife (Katherine Heigl) is one of the great unsung suspense films of the 2010s, a movie that tweaks its conventions at every opportunity for a feminist riff on a genre often criticized for its misogyny. “I loved directing, and I was proud of my work,” Di Novi said. The movie counted Steven Spielberg among its fans and looked like it would lead to more directing work via a project at Amblin, but when that project fell through Di Novi thought long and hard about where he wanted to allocate her energy. “I would have directed again, but I got to a point where I had other projects going as a producer and I thought, ‘Do I want to spend two years directing to the exclusion of all these other movies?'” Di Novi found a way to do both when she began directing episodic television, which allowed her to flex her directorial muscles on shows like “Outlander” and “Ray Donovan” without taking years away from producing. “I haven’t turned my back on directing,” she said, though right now her focus is on getting “Practical Magic 2” out into the world and hoping it finds the audience it deserves, since it’s a project — like everything she does — that means a lot to her. “Listen, there are all different kinds of producers,” Di Novi said. “For me, it’s about an emotional experience I want to have. If a movie makes me feel deeply, it’s worth all the pain and agony to get it made.” A Warner Bros. release, “Practical Magic 2” opens in theaters on September 10. By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.