The most marketable film pitches boil down to the combination of two different titles, and Now You See Me had one; “Ocean’s Eleven meets The Prestige” is such a good concept that it probably didn’t need its roster of stars. 2013’s Now You See Me wasn’t completely “original” (conformed to the conventions in the last century of heist thrillers), but it was “new” in the sense that it wasn’t based on established source material. Like any good magic trick, Now You See Me is an absorbing experience that is most effective without any post-analysis. It’s not even that the film’s logic is flimsy, but that the script was seemingly compiled by darts thrown at a board of the most ludicrous plot twists imaginable.
Now You See Me is ostensibly about the stage illusionists Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merrit McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), who become a group of Robin Hood-esque known as “The Four Horseman.” Their elaborate stage shows are a ruse used to publicly rob and humiliate billionaires who’ve committed financial crimes, which has in turn attracted the attention of the FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo). The twist is that Rhodes was the secret mastermind, and that his failed attempt to capture the Horseman was part of the plan to expose the insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) for fraud. The lengths that Rhodes went to in his undercover role as a federal agent would suggest one of two things; either the twist was inserted as a last-minute addition so that the popular actor could play a good guy in the sequel, or Ruffalo’s performance was pitched in an unusually subtle register.
Like most sequels, 2016’s Now You See Me 2 offered more of the same while being just an extra percentage dumber. The entire cast was back, with the exception of Fisher, whose scheduling conflicts created an opportunity to introduce a new female lead in Lula May (Lizzy Caplan); additionally, Morgan Freeman’s Thaddeus Bradley, a former magician who served alongside Dylan’s father, was boosted to a co-lead. The issue with the sequel was its direction from future Wicked director Jon M. Chu, whose incompetence at worldbuilding made for an unpleasant two hours that spent more time teasing the mythology of a broader magical universe than giving the stars an opportunity to mingle with one another. Chu’s film was unusually focused on plot, whereas its predecessor used the charisma of the actors to string together loosely-connected set pieces.
The best decision that Lionsgate made with the franchise after the underwhelming (albeit profitable) second film was to cease it. Instead of a television spinoff, prequel film, or extended universe, the distributor chose to sit on its plans to develop a third entry until the cast could be reassembled. Enough time had passed that the latest film, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, was a breath of fresh air for its abundantly busy stars; for Franco and Eisenberg, both of whom have become prominent writer/producers in the past decade, a return to whimsical stagecraft was a throwback to their roots as bit players in studio comedies. That the film had room to include both Fisher and Caplan suggested that Hollywood in the last decade has seen enough progress to have two female co-leads without the insertion of an unnecessary love triangle.
The savviest aspect of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is that in the time since the previous film, culture has evolved in a way that would favor the Horseman. The serpentine, anti-capitalist machinations that they pulled were merely subtext in 2013, but they play out like millennial fantasies to a radicalized, post-Luigi Mangione news cycle. The new film’s director, Ruben Fleischer, also understood that a half-hearted explanation for the contrived twists and turns was preferable to the non-committal approach that Chu took with the second chapter. While not incoherent, the knotty schemes pulled by the Horseman can be attributed to some form of human creativity that stands in defiance of artificial intelligence.
Even in 2013, the cast of Now You See Me was overqualified for a silly film with no ambition beyond being a good time. Harrelson, Eisenberg, and Ruffalo were all Oscar nominees at that point, and Caine and Freeman had reached “elder statesman” status. The inclusion of new cast members was necessary for a sequel that came nine years after the last film, and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t showed a further commitment to being an opportunity for rising talent to do leisurely work in-between prestige plays.
The three new actors added to Now You See Me: Now You Don’t are all poised to be highly sought after in the new future. Dominic Sessa gave an acclaimed performance in the Oscar-nominated The Holdovers, and will next play Anthony Bourdain in a biopic for A24. Ariana Greenblatt had already amassed credits in Marvel and Star Wars projects, as well as original genre thrillers like Love and Monsters and 65. Smith had a somewhat rough start after being miscast in the Jurassic World sequel, but gave the performance of a lifetime in A24’s surrealist arthouse drama I Saw The TV Glow, which is guaranteed to be a cult classic among younger cinephiles. None of these actors necessarily “needed” to be in a Now You See Me sequel, but it was in their best interest to do something more mainstream as they build credibility. Doing a Now You See Me film every few years is certainly preferable to a streaming show or more intensive franchise role that would eat up a larger portion of their schedules.
Now You See Me was a film that performed well in theaters before it gained a second life on cable during the last era in which “flipping channels” was a frequent occurrence. Unsurprisingly, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t was a modest theatrical success that’s bound to reap significantly more revenue from advertisers now that it's available on streaming. A fourth film will likely take less time to be released, but the distance between installments is what has helped the Now You See Me saga to avoid being derivative.