‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’ Director Ruben Fleischer Talks Unannounced Characters and the Active Fourth Chapter

[This story contains spoilers for Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.]

Ruben Fleischer is used to kicking off franchises, but Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is the first time he’s joined one.

As the director of both Zombieland movies, Venom and Uncharted, the third Now You See Me movie certainly fits Fleischer’s penchant for fun action set pieces and banter between likable characters. But the most obvious selling point was the chance to reteam with two of his Zombieland actors, Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson, for the fourth time each. The Zombieland reunions didn’t stop there as Fleischer then brought in screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick to punch up the script while filming was already underway.

With Mark Ruffalo unavailable due to Task, the third installment repositions Eisenberg’s J. Daniel Atlas as the ringleader of the Horsemen. The original four magician-vigilantes of Atlas, Merritt McKinney (Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) are currently at odds with each other over a failed heist that resulted in the imprisonment of Ruffalo’s Dylan Shrike in Russia. So Atlas decides to recruit three Gen Z magicians —played by Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa and Justice Smith — all of whom share the Robin Hood-like ethos of the Horsemen.

Ultimately, each generation of the Horsemen bands together to take down Rosamund Pike’s Veronika Vanderberg, who launders money for arms dealers through her South African diamond company. After a job well done, Ruffalo’s character then appears via a holographic message to reveal that he’s no longer in prison and tee up their next trick.

“It was only when we were doing reshoots this past summer that [Ruffalo] happened to be available for a day in New York. We were able to shoot him against a green screen and add him to the final scene of the movie,” Fleischer tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’s current theatrical release.

If this third installment’s box office run continues to show that the audience still has an appetite for magician-led heists, Fleischer and co. are already planning their next move, one that would hopefully include the entire stable of Horsemen. The count is currently nine.

“That’s certainly the aspiration, but when you have an ensemble franchise like this with so many characters and storylines to service, it obviously presents challenges,” Fleischer admits. “We have to be real smart and intentional with how we structure the film. So we’re in the midst of that right now as we’re working on the fourth installment.”

John M. Chu’s previous chapter, Now You See Me 2 (2016), opted to write out Fisher’s character due to the actor’s pregnancy at the time. Lizzy Caplan’s Lula May then took her place as the one female Horseman. However, the latter’s status became a bit of a mystery when Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’s marketing highlighted the return of Fisher without any acknowledgement of Caplan. That raised the dreaded question of whether Caplan would be removed from the story in the same expositional way Fisher was a decade ago. Fortunately, the two actors are not alternating appearances, as Caplan’s Lula returns at a crucial point midway through the movie. Disguised as an intoxicated older woman, she breaks a few Horsemen out of jail before revealing herself.

“It was really important to me that we rectify the past. Isla’s character, Henley, was written out with just a line of exposition, and audiences were just forced to accept Lula in her place,” Fleischer says. “So I was really grateful that we could right the ship on that. We could not only feature both of them, but we could also suggest that they’re friends and that there’s solidarity among female magicians.”

As for Zombieland 3, Fleischer has his sights set on 2029 in order to maintain the end-of-decade release pattern that started with 2009’s Zombieland and continued with 2019’s Zombieland: Double Tap.

“We always talk about it. Last month was the 16th anniversary of Zombieland, and an email went around among the cast and producer and writers. Everybody expressed their desire to make another one,” Fleischer shares. “2029 is when we always said that it should come out because the second one [in 2019] was ten years after the first one. When we were making the second one, we all agreed we should do this thing again in ten years. So we’ve got a little bit of time to figure it out, but we’ve got to get on it, that’s for sure.”

Below, during a recent spoiler conversation with THR, Fleischer also discusses Eisenberg’s decision to not return to the role of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning, as well as his disappointment over the Venom’s franchise inability to bring Eddie Brock and Peter Parker together.

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This is the first time you’ve directed a sequel to an existing franchise. You usually start film or TV series, be it Zombieland, Venom or Uncharted. Did Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson recruit you for this job?

I don’t know if they directly recruited me, but their involvement is definitely why I did this movie. I am a huge fan of Jesse and Woody, and if I could make every movie with them, I would. I’ll even acknowledge I’ve tried to do that. This was my fourth film with both of them, and it was just so fun to be paired with two people I respect and trust and truly love watching on screen so much. So I felt really lucky to get to work with them again.

Your Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are also credited writers. When did they come in?

We had a great script, but we were looking to fix some of the action. This was actually while we were already working in Budapest. So we had a really great draft, but we just wanted to take it to the next level. So they came in and helped out and added their genius to it all. That’s part of why it works so well. They really know how to write for Woody and Jesse and, as it turns out, all of the characters.

This may be the first time you’ve joined a franchise midstream, but you have worked off of source material before via Venom and Uncharted. So did you basically just treat the first two films as that?

Totally. I approached this as a fan of the franchise. I often think about myself as the audience member on set. My role as a director is just imagining what I would want to see as an audience member, whether it’s a Venom movie or an Uncharted movie or a Now You See Me movie. I asked myself, “What are the key elements to the IP and what you’re trying to make?” And I think it’s the dynamic, banter and relationships among the Horsemen. It’s all the twists and turns, a great third-act reveal and then magic throughout. So I really approached it as a fan of the franchise, and besides things I wanted to bring to the surface, I distilled what worked well from what didn’t work as well in the first two movies.

That’s why a lot of the magic in this movie was all practical. It was shot in-camera. I didn’t want to rely on visual effects to achieve the magic. That may count as movie magic, but I was really interested in providing the audience with as close to the experience of going to a live magic show as you could possibly manifest on screen. Magic traditionally doesn’t translate super well from stage to screen because audiences are so savvy and aware that they can be manipulated through editing or visual effects. So I kept the shots longer without cuts to really prove that the magic is real. I also created environments where there’s magic inherent to the set design. It was just important to me to fill every frame with as much magic as I possibly could.

I’m certainly not the first person to make this comparison, but filmmakers and magicians overlap quite a bit. You both have a bag of tricks to create visual illusions for an audience. So what practical magic trick were you most proud of here?

The movie is filled with magic tricks and good set pieces, but what was most important to me is that I wanted the movie as a whole to work like a magic trick. There had to be a big third-act reveal that the audience doesn’t see coming. The first Now You See Me did a great job of that, and I would argue that the second one, a little less so. So I took inspiration from The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense, which gave me, as an audience member, the greatest feeling of amazement and wonder. Those third-act reveals were like a great magic trick.

So we devised a twist for this film that I thought was really satisfying, and the most gratifying step in the whole process of making this movie was definitely our first test screening where we played it for an audience. When that reveal happened, there was literally an audible gasp from the audience. I was just so gratified and proud that it had worked and that we were able to pull the wool over the eyes of the audience.

Not only did they not see it coming, but they were actually invested in the reveal. Sometimes, you can have a reveal that is more of a head scratcher, but to feel that visceral reaction from an engaged and surprised audience, it gave me a slight indication of what a real magician might feel when they’re performing a trick for an audience. So, as a filmmaker, this was about as close as I can imagine getting to that look of amazement after a great magic trick.

Mark Ruffalo’s character, Dylan Rhodes/Shrike, organized the Horsemen, and he led them throughout the prior films either directly or indirectly. With Mark shooting Task and Crime 101, did that basically allow you to put Atlas (Eisenberg) in more of the leadership role?

Yeah, it was a combination. Ultimately, Ruffalo’s character, Dylan, orchestrated the whole thing, and maybe it’s my own personal bias, but I always found myself gravitating towards Jesse. So we coordinated it so that he was now the ringleader of this gang of magicians. That also happened to coincide with the fact that Mark Ruffalo was unavailable over the course of our filming, and it was only when we were doing reshoots this past summer that he happened to be available for a day in New York. We were able to shoot him against a green screen and add him to the final scene of the movie.

If there’s a fourth film, is the idea to have everyone back?

That’s certainly the aspiration, but when you have an ensemble franchise like this with so many characters and storylines to service, it obviously presents challenges. We have to be real smart and intentional with how we structure the film. So we’re in the midst of that right now as we’re working on the fourth installment. It’s an exciting challenge, but it’s certainly a challenge to juggle so many compelling characters who are played by such charismatic actors.

Apparently, Michael Caine hasn’t actually retired. Did anyone make a phone call for the sake of curiosity?

I think that was only revealed after we were done shooting. But if we’re lucky enough to make another Now You See Me, we will definitely give him a call.

After missing out on the second film, Isla Fisher’s character, Henley, reclaims her spot in the Horsemen. When Henley explains that she didn’t feel safe doing tricks while pregnant, the movie is basically borrowing the real-life explanation for her absence, right?

Yeah, I think the reason why Isla was unable to be in the second movie was because she was pregnant. So we just leaned into that reality and made it Henley’s storyline. She’d retired from magic because she wanted to prioritize family life, which is a juxtaposition against Jesse’s character. He’s still single, and he’s still fighting the good fight of the Horsemen.

I appreciate that you not only found room for Lizzy Caplan’s Lula to return, but you also established an existing friendship between her and Henley. It would’ve been odd if the previous female characters kept swapping in and out of each film. And one of the funniest scenes of the movie is when Lula has to play catch-up on everything she missed to that point.

I really appreciate you saying that. It was really important to me that we rectify the past. Isla’s character, Henley, was written out with just a line of exposition, and audiences were just forced to accept Lula in her place. So I was really grateful that we could right the ship on that. We could not only feature both of them, but we could also suggest that they’re friends and that there’s solidarity among female magicians. In truth, there’s a very small number of female magicians. So the fact that we now have three female magicians was worthy of acknowledgement in the film.

Whether it’s Isla and Lizzy or everybody else, there is solidarity among the cast as a whole. They really love each other. It’s crazy how much affinity these actors have for one another. Perhaps my favorite part of getting involved with this movie was just joining this family of incredibly talented actors who really love working together. So if we can continue to make these movies, I know that everybody would feel really happy and lucky. We are proud of the movies, for sure, but we also just have such a great time making them.

These films have always gone after corruption and greed, particularly among the one percent. So it made a lot of sense to bring in Gen Z characters since they’re keenly aware — more so than any other generation —of how much the older generations have set them back.

Yeah, the Robin Hood nature of the Now You See Me movies is inherent to them, and that attitude is very well represented in the young Horsemen that are introduced in this film. There was also a fun meta quality to these actors who grew up loving the Now You See Me movies and were excited to portray magicians in the franchise. The magicians they’re portraying grew up loving the Horsemen and aspired to become magicians, in part because of the Horsemen. So there was this fun life-imitating-art quality of Dominic [Sessa], Justice [Smith] and Ariana [Greenblatt] playing magicians who admire the older Horsemen, while Justice, Ariana and Dominic are also young actors who admire Jesse, Woody, Isla and the rest of the crew.

Dominic was the biggest fan of the franchise, and he was also the most committed to learning magic and becoming a magician. This is the biggest movie of his career, and while it’s the fourth movie he’s made, it’s the first to be released after The Holdovers. So he just stepped right into the role, and you never would have known that it was only his fourth movie. He just has such a natural quality. He’s effortlessly charismatic and really confident, and he just fit right in with the rest of the gang.

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t and F1 both shot at the same Abu Dhabi locations. How close in proximity were you?

We definitely crossed paths in Hungary, but I think that their Abu Dhabi time was ahead of us. I don’t think we could have filmed at the same time because we were both using that crazy [Yas Marina Circuit] track that is at The W hotel. Not only did Now You See Me and F1 both shoot in Hungary and Abu Dhabi, but the other movies that were shot in both places are the two Dune movies, which I was surprised to learn. They did a lot of their stage work in Budapest, and they shot a lot of the desert stuff in Abu Dhabi. In our movie, when that convoy goes to the mine in the middle of the desert, that’s pretty much the same desert where they shoot the Dune movies.

This is Jesse’s third time playing Daniel Atlas. He’s also played Columbus twice for you in the Zombieland films. Thus, were you surprised when you found out that he didn’t want to reprise his Social Network character in the upcoming sequel?

No, I think that Jesse has a good sense of what he wants to accomplish as an actor. It’s been really exciting to see him turn over this new page as a director as well. He’s constantly challenging himself creatively, so I don’t know exactly why he made the decision about not continuing on in The Social [Reckoning]. But he has made such exciting career choices every step of his journey, and I’m always excited to see what he does next.

The Venom trilogy wrapped up last year without any Venom and Spider-Man interactions. Did that not surprise you given how much red tape there is between Sony and Marvel Studios?

Honestly, I always hoped that Venom and Spider-Man would cross paths on screen. They’re both such compelling characters. Obviously, they’re inherent to one another in the comics, but I wasn’t very involved with the Venom movies after the first one. So I can’t speak to why they went down the road that they did, but speaking as a fan, it would’ve been really exciting to see those two on screen together.

I know that Zoey Deutch is very eager to adorn herself in Von Dutch attire again, but is the Zombieland franchise still hibernating at the moment?

(Laughs.) We always talk about it. Last month was the 16th anniversary of Zombieland, and an email went around among the cast and producer and writers. Everybody expressed their desire to make another one. 2029 is when we always said that it should come out because the second one [in 2019] was ten years after the first one. When we were making the second one, we all agreed we should do this thing again in ten years. So we’ve got a little bit of time to figure it out, but we’ve got to get on it, that’s for sure.

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Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is now playing in movie theaters.