Now You See Me: Now You Don’t performed a magic trick at the box office this weekend, taking the #1 spot over the much-hyped remake of The Running Man starring Glen Powell. It seems audiences are very much in the mood to keep seeing the Four Horsemen perform the kind of wild, Robin Hood-esque stunts this star-studded franchise is all about.
And it’s likely to continue. Not only has director Ruben Fleischer already begun chipping away at a fourth film, but the film itself ends with a big, surprise tease towards what’s next. Though, according to Fleischer, it almost didn’t happen. To explain, we have to get into spoilers.
Going into its release, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t seemed to be missing two crucial ingredients. One was Lizzy Caplan, who took over for Isla Fisher on the second movie due to scheduling. The second was Mark Ruffalo, whose detective-turned-magic-leader has always been at the center of the action. Well, one of Now You See Me 3‘s first big tricks is bringing Caplan back mid-movie, and then, for its final reveal, Ruffalo returns too. Only, not how you’d expect.
“The biggest challenge with Mark is his schedule,” Fleischer told Variety. “He’s a very busy guy, and so he was only able to be in the film because we did some reshoots this summer. He wasn’t originally available over the course of principal photography. He actually wasn’t even available during our reshoots, but I was lucky to catch him for a day in New York, and we shot him against a green screen. That’s why he’s a hologram, as opposed to entering into the scene. We took what we could get.”
Yes, at the end of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, Ruffalo’s character Dylan Rhodes, who the film explains early on is in jail, appears as a holographic message to the Horsemen and their new counterparts. He teases that all that’s happened is to The Eye’s liking (that’s the massive magic society he seems to run), but now this new group has more to do. Which, we assume, would be the plot of a fourth movie.
How that tease would’ve happened if Ruffalo wasn’t available, we don’t know. But getting him to appear in the movie at all does feel like the final piece of the puzzle that keeps this installment as relevant as the rest. We hope they all come together again, and fast.
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan, Morgan Freeman, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, and Ariana Greenblatt, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is now in theaters.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
