This post contains spoilers for “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.”
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” the third installment in this franchise, is in theaters now, and you may find one particular sequence especially striking: When the original Four Horsemen — J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) — and the group’s new Gen-Z members Charlie (Justice Smith), Bosco (Dominic Sessa), and June (Ariana Greenblatt) all show off their takes on sleight-of-hand card tricks. While the gang is in a remote and seemingly abandoned French chateau which may or may not be owned by their former mentor Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), director Ruben Fleischer pulls off an audacious one-take shot of each magician performing a trick, and /Film got to exclusively speak to him about it.
Asked whether it was easier or harder to shoot practical magic tricks using a single take, Fleischer clarified that it was the latter.
“Definitely harder. What was happening behind the scenes of that shot was pretty cool […] But we did employ some visual effects in that to help out our actors who are not real magicians who have trained their entire life. But the cool thing about that is that if they had been real magicians who had trained their entire life, it could have been done all without any use of visual effects. The only thing we did is maybe somebody makes something disappear and it dropped to the floor and we painted out the thing happening. But if they had been a real magician, they would’ve been able to actually conceal it and then ultimately reveal it.”
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This one-take scene in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t utilized a lot of practical effects
Merritt and Thaddeus in the mystery box house smiling at someone in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t – Lionsgate
Let me back up a little bit and explain the scene in question. Once Atlas, Henley, Merritt, Jack, Bosco, Charlie, and June decide to team up to steal the Heart Diamond from wealthy magnate and CEO Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), whose silly accent masks how deeply evil she actually is, they manage to trick Veronika and her security team and abscond with the fist-sized jewel. At that chateau in France, the gang solves a series of puzzles — it’s basically an escape room for magicians — to reveal Thaddeus in a private chamber standing by a fire, giving the group a moment of respite before they keep evading French police.
Using both humble playing cards and the diamond itself, the gang has a good time, and according to Ruben Fleischer, it was almost exclusively practically done. When Sessa’s Bosco spins a playing card as part of a trick, Fleischer says they had “some guy off camera with a fishing line” on a broomstick aiding the effect. Then, when Bosco passes the card to Isla Fisher’s Henley, the trick goes on. Fleischer continued:
“Then Isla grabs it and at that point it disconnects from the fishing line and she’s able to rip it and fold it up or do whatever she does. So it was a ton of moving pieces behind camera of different people coming in and assisting. And in fact, once she folds it, then she makes the diamond appear. Somebody then lifted the diamond into her hand just below the line of the camera and then it magically appears. So there’s all kinds of things happening behind the camera, but it was all practical. It wasn’t visual effects.”
That impromptu magic show in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is a major highlight of Ruben Fleischer’s film
Charlie and Atlas walking behind Merritt who’s gesturing in a hallway in Now You See Me: Now You Don’t – Lionsgate
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is a fun installment in this franchise right out of the gate. Not only is it nice to see the original cast back in action, but Dominic Sessa and Justice Smith settle into the dynamic nicely, though Ariana Greenblatt struggles under the weight of clunky lines and a character that can politely be described as “the token girl.” Still, there’s an argument to be made that the sequence before, after, and including Ruben Fleischer’s clever one-take is the highlight of the movie, which does admittedly get bogged down by its script pretty often. (It’s a testament to Lizzy Caplan’s unbelievable charisma as an actress that she manages to make her return as Lula Mae, whose lines largely boil down to “remember how I was in the last movie?!”, engaging and fun.)
Atlas, Merritt, Jack, Henley, Bosco, June, and Charlie make their way through the house without any idea that basically everything in front of them is an interactive puzzle in some way, shape, or form, from the front door itself (which June handily solves) to a bookcase that only becomes a door if you know a specific code that’s related to the history of witchcraft (Charlie, a self-professed “magic nerd,” covers this one). As they keep solving puzzles and working together as a team, it feels satisfying just to witness; this is obviously the team-building exercise of the Four Horseman plus three, if you will, and it really works. Plus, it’s nice to know, from Ruben Fleischer directly, that a lot of it relied on good old fashioned practical magic.
“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is in theaters now.
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