This summer we saw an egregious number of blockbuster flops, including Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger, M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth and Robert Schwentke's R.I.P.D., but there was at least one bit surprise hit: Louis Leterrier's Now You See Me. Featuring an exciting ensemble cast that included Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco, Mélanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, the film wound up making nearly $300 million at the global box office - which is a big deal for a movie that was only made for $75 million. Despite this success it was still a rather big surprise when it was revealed earlier this month that the film will be getting a sequel. And now it's been confirmed who will be the director behind it.
Speaking with Coming Soon at a press day for the upcoming Blu-ray/DVD release of Now You See Me, Leterrier has revealed that he has been hired to direct the untitled sequel (will it be called Now You Don't?). What's more the filmmaker has already begun starting to develop the film's story and structure. Said the filmmaker,
"Obviously it was always part of it. I'm currently, not writing, but we're coming up with the story, the plot, the everything, the twist and the new characters and everything. It was always at least a diptych, two movies, to tell one long story, so yeah, I'm very much involved in it."
While Summit is looking to move forward with the sequel, however, Leterrier says that he may actually direct a different film before he hops back into the world of magic. The director is attached to a project called G, a sci-fi film where the world has stopped spinning and gravity has been eliminated, but that's not necessarily the project that he would take on next.
In the same interview, the filmmaker also revealed that Blu-ray/DVD of Now You See Me will include a scene that wasn't included in the theatrical cut of the film and will actually help set up the story for the sequel. Asked why the sequence wasn't included in the big screen version, Leterrier explained,
"It was sort of ending up (with the movie) in ‘onto further adventures,' which is fine, but we don't really do that. We had a scene that we kept and when Lionsgate and Summit said, ‘Yeah, let's do a sequel,' I said, ‘Okay let's put it on the DVD and do the longer cut. It's after the credits, but I was very conscious of not jinxing it. This summer I saw a couple of movies where they had ‘sequelitis' and you totally jinx it, but this was only for the DVD and only for the Blu-ray."
Now You See Me will be out on Blu-ray and DVD on September 3rd, and you can watch the trailer for the film below.
