Popular witchcraft-centered 2000s TV series Charmed took more than a little inspiration from 1996's cult classic horror movie The Craft. Witches are one of the oldest villains in horror, and of course, one of the oldest villains in the history of people. Female practitioners of black magic have been objects of fear for centuries, despite that obviously being more borne of sexism than anything. Real-life Wiccans are usually perfectly nice people, and even those who claim to have magical powers profess that they use those powers for good.
In the pop culture realm, there have been dozens of memorable witches, some heroic and some demonic. There's the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, Sabrina the Teenage Witch on either her old or current show, the devilishly likeable Rowena from Supernatural, Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus, and that's barely scratching the surface. Witches have been and will seemingly continue to be a movie and TV staple.
In 1996, director Andrew Fleming's film The Craft hit theaters, and while reviews were mixed, it became a modest hit. As the years went on though, The Craft amassed a large cult fanbase, to the point where a reboot is currently in the works. Two years later, in 1998, Charmed debuted on The WB. That may not have been a coincidence.
Charmed Was Inspired By The Craft - Here's Why
The surface similarities between The Craft and Charmed are pretty clear at a glance. The former focuses on a group of four young outcasts who become witches and use magic to improve their lives and get payback on their enemies. The latter concerns three young sisters who find out that being witches run in their family, and that together they can use the Power of Three to do good. Both contain lots of mid-late 1990s fashions and music, and do their best to exert a feeling of coolness. Most strikingly, both The Craft and Charmed feature The Smiths' song "How Soon Is Now?" as covered by the band Love Spit Love, the latter as its opening theme song.
However, according to Andrew Fleming himself, the similarities between The Craft and Charmed might be more deliberate than simply trying to emulate a thing that worked before. As he tells it, after The Craft's success, Fleming wrote a pilot for a TV series based on the film for FOX. That network decided to pass, but The WB was interested. For reasons unknown, FOX wouldn't allow them to have it. Then, the following year, The WB premiered Charmed. The Craft star Robin Tunney has even publicly bashed Charmed as a ripoff, although Fleming didn't go quite that far. While it's normal in Hollywood for studios to play follow the leader, the timing does seem to be a bit suspect.