Now You See Me 3 Director Ruben Fleischer Talks Practical Effects, Teases 4
ComingSoon’s Tyler Treese spoke with Now You See Me 3 director Ruben Fleischer about the latest magic heist movie. Fleischer discussed how being a fan influenced the film, the great number of practical illusions, and teased the upcoming fourth movie. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is now available to watch at home from Lionsgate.
“The Four Horsemen (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher) are back — to unite with a new generation of illusionists (Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt) for their most global, high-stakes magical adventure yet. Their mission: Expose the corruption of Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), a powerful diamond heiress with ties to arms dealers, traffickers, and warlords. Aided by the legendary Thaddeus (Morgan Freeman), the two generations of magicians must overcome their differences to try and defeat their cunning and dangerous adversary, in this magic-fueled heist filled with the franchise’s signature twists, turns, and thrilling reveals — along with some of the most thrilling illusions ever captured on film,” says the official synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Ruben, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is such a fun movie. My favorite scene in the film is the segment with the mansion, with all the different perspective tricks and the cool rooms that really lean into the magic element. I saw some really cool set photos. How cool is it that you actually got to create some of those perspective tricks and do it legit and practically rather than it just be purely a CGI spectacle?
Ruben Fleischer: That’s awesome that you appreciated that. That’s my favorite section of the film as well. As a fan of the franchise entering into it, there was a lot of things from the previous movies that I wanted to embrace and to continue on these great characters and obviously the tone and the fun of it all. But then there’s some other things too that I was trying to maybe reconcile. One example is how Henley was in the first movie, and then it was Lula and there was really no explanation. So I really wanted to kind of make it all right.
Another thing that was really important to me is that I felt like there was times in the previous two movies where they relied too heavily on visual effects. For me, it took away some of what I love about magic. For me, magic is when you see it right before your very eyes and, you know, manipulating with VFX or editing or anything else. So I wanted to do as much as possible in camera, practical, et cetera. So this magic castle, the chateau, was an opportunity to just fill it with as much rooms that could only exist in a place like that, a magic building. The Ames room, which is the perspective one you’re referring to, where one person’s really big and one person’s really small was super cool because usually those rooms are just kind of squares with some grids. So to have all the details of a 19th-century chateau, everything had to be custom 3D printed to fit exactly in the thing because all their perspectives are off. Like everything that looks square is actually a trapezoid. It took a lot of figuring out in order to achieve. But I’m thrilled with the way it ended up.
The room perhaps I’m most proud of is that what we call the infinity staircase, which is that mirrored room that Woody was in. I basically challenged the production designer to figure out how can we come up with an environment that looks kind of like an M.C. Escher painting, where you don’t know quite what’s right side up and what’s right side down and you’re kind of lost. It ended up being so cool because there was times where we would frame up the reflection and you think that’s where he was, and then you pan over and then you see him actually enter frame. It was just such a cool thing that I don’t think anybody on the crew had ever been in anything like that. When Woody first walked in there, like his mind was truthfully blown.
The spinning corridor we’ve seen obviously in movies dating back to Fred Astaire. But it was really cool just as a dork to get to make my own and get to stage an action sequence in it. Then the mirrored hallway is something also that we’ve seen in movies. But what was kind of cool about ours is because we can now erase the reflection of the camera person, we could be a lot more dynamic. So the only VFX we employed in both that in the mirror room, we’re just painting out the cameraman. We weren’t adding anything. We were in a position where we could shoot into the mirror and then know that it didn’t matter if we saw the guy with the camera.
I was so delightfully surprised when Lizzy Caplan showed up. I didn’t know she was gonna be in the movie. When Lula was mentioned earlier, I was like, “Well, at least they’re not acting like she didn’t exist.” So I was happy with that as a fan of her. Then I was on cloud nine when she showed up. How special was it that that surprise really stayed intact? My whole screening room had a bit of a pop when she showed up. So that was fun to experience.
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, I mean, that makes me so happy. I had the experience on Zombieland where we had this huge cameo with Bill Murray and we worked really hard to not have that leak through all the marketing and through all the promotion and everything else. We really relied on even people who were going to the theater to like say, “Listen, there’s a part in the movie. I’m not gonna tell you what it is, but it’s really awesome and they don’t wanna spoil it because there’s such a joy of that experience of like not expecting something and then being surprised.”
So we took a similar approach with this where Lizzy wasn’t in any of the marking materials and we really tried to keep it a secret and then asked people who had seen the movie to just preserve those secrets for other people and not spoil anything. I think people appreciate the joy they experienced in wanting to share that joy as opposed to spoiling it. So yeah, I’m thrilled with it all worked out, but it was really important to me that we have both women in the movie because, as a fan, I didn’t love how they just kind of swapped out one for the other.
I like that you mentioned multiple times that you were a fan of these movies. I think it really tells here. There’s always an inherent goofiness to this franchise, but you’re very respectful to what came before, and this film manages to shake it up with the new characters. But, but there’s also just an inherent respect for everything that happened before. Do you feel like that’s really important when you’re coming into a franchise?
Ruben Fleischer: Yeah, you basically said. I made this movie for the fans, and I had the benefit of doing that as a fan myself. So I kind of just thought the whole time to myself, “What would I want to see?” Obviously, the script was a starting place, but once I got involved, I was shaping the script truly from the perspective of a fan of these movies, what’s the most fun version of this? Because you can say what you want about the Now You See Me franchise, but it’s certainly fun above all else.
That’s all I wanted to provide for the audience was just like a really fun, kind of just classic theater experience of popcorn movie where you’re just going to have some twists and turns in the stories, some great performances by some great actors, laughter, action, suspense, and magic, most of all. But yeah, I feel like I’m glad you felt as a fan that it satisfied because that’s all I ever intended to do. It’s been a 10-year wait, it’d be shame if we didn’t just deliver entirely on the hopes and expectations of the loyal audience.
You spent all this time setting up all these characters, everybody’s brought back together, and with Now You See Me 4 coming up, you really get to play with all these pieces now. What’s most exciting about having done all this work here and really getting to let go with a four in the future?
Yeah, I’m so excited. I really loved the experience of making this movie. These actors are all terrific. They also just happen to love working together. I knew that was true of the original cast, but the three new kids like just folded in seamlessly and everybody just kind of fell in love and it was really beautiful. We’re all kind of sad, honestly, that Rosamund [Pike] won’t be in the next one because she also was just so fun. We all hung out. We were in Budapest and Abu Dhabi and we had great time making the movie.
I feel really lucky to be able to continue telling this story, and I am excited to see where it goes. I just take what we built in this last one and then bring it to the next level and keep pushing it forward.
I’m glad you mentioned Rosamund, too, because she’s just having the time of her life in this film. It’s such a fun performance.
She’s so delicious as a villain. She just chews the scenery, but it’s like the best. That’s all I wanted from her was to just make Veronika somebody that you just absolutely love to hate because she’s just so watchable.
Thanks to Ruben Fleischer for taking the time to talk about Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.
Source: Comingsoon.net