The Four Horsemen’s next cinematic sleight-of-hand has a new title: “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.” And the thieving magicians’ third big screen heist adventure won’t be their last — a fourth film is in development with Ruben Fleischer returning to direct.
“We were so happy with the director’s cut, we’re already developing the next chapter,” Lionsgate‘s Motion Picture Group chair Adam Fogelson said Tuesday morning at CinemaCon, the annual convention for movie theater owners. “We can’t wait for audiences to discover what he’s done with the third film and thrilled he’ll be making even more magic with us.”
Before Fleischer gets to work on the fourquel, “Now You See Me 3” will open in theaters on Nov. 14. Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles from the first two films while Ariana Greenblatt and Rosamund Pike will join the cast.
At CinemaCon, Lionsgate brought a first-look at the third installment, a sequel to 2016’s “Now You See Me 2” and 2013’s “Now You See Me.” As a refresher, the series focuses on the thieving illusionists known as the Four Horsemen (Eisenberg, Harrelson, Franco and Fisher). However, they’re disbanded in the early moments of this third film as Eisenberg’s character tells a new generation of crooked magicians that his former comrades are dead. “To me,” he clarifies. “Things got too real for them. They gave up stuff.”
The threequel picks up with a diamond heist that involves two generations of illusionists — the Horsemen seemingly come out of retirement and join newcomers Greenblatt, Justice Smith and Dominic Sessa — to take down dangerous criminals.
“I like our odds,” Greenblatt’s character says in the trailer, which hasn’t yet been revealed to the public.
The first two films were commercial successes — and the kind of mid-budget production that traditional studios rarely greenlight these days. The original grossed $350 million while the sequel generated $334 million.
Bobby Cohen, who originally developed and has produced all the films in the series, will return to produce the new installment alongside Alex Kurtzman of Secret Hideout. Meredith Wieck will oversee the project for Lionsgate.
“Directing ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’ was as much fun as making any movie in my career,” Fleischer said. “It combines two of my favorite things — heist movies and magic — and working with this incredible cast was truly magical. Of course I want to keep it going.”
From Variety US