movie news: Sequel on the cards for Now You See Me

D’you see what I did there?

Surprise hit of the summer Now You See Me is set to get a sequel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The magician’s heist movie (how to classify it caused me some trouble) has made just over $255 million worldwide on a reported budget of $75 million so it’s hardly surprising.

What will surprise me is if they manage to get the cast back. It had a pretty impressive cast for such a mid-range film – Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine – so I expect we’ll either see an almost full turnover, or they thought ahead and booked them all in already. Which would have been a smart move.

The film definitely ended with thoughts of a sequel in mind so there’s always the chance that they did. In a call with analysts, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said that production on the sequel is pencilled in for 2014, so expect more news soon.

I quite liked Now You See Me despite that fact that it was really a lot more convoluted than it needed to be. It’s main problem was that there were far too many characters with… less than distinct actual character. But then you could say that about most blockbusters these days so it’s hardly an impediment to making money.

I did think that the ending was pretty weak, as set ups for sequels go, so let’s see what happens.

source: The Hollywood Reporter