Though Now You See Me 2 doesn't land in Stateside cinemas until June (and a month later here), studio types at Lionsgate are apparently confident enough in its potential performance to start locking down elements for another outing from the Four Horsemen. The first person attached? Director Jon M. Chu.
He took over the director's chair from Louis Leterrier, who made the 2013 original, and brings to the screen another story featuring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco's master illusionists, with Lizzy Caplan replacing the unavailable Isla Fisher as new recruit Lula and Mark Ruffalo back as Dylan Rhodes.
Though three years have passed since the first film for us, it's only been a year since the world last saw J. Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Harrelson) and Jack Wilder (Franco). The team haven’t been glimpsed since they outwitted the FBI and pulled off a daring heist to expose financier Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine). But now they’re back, still righting wrongs and acting as Robin Hood-style magicians. This time, though, they face the double threat of Morgan Freeman's debunking supremo Thaddeus Bradley still causing trouble despite being in jail and, more crucially, tech prodigy Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe), who has found a way to put them in fresh hot water. The only way for the Horsemen to clear their name is to pull off their most impossible heist yet…
Quite what they'll be up to in a third has yet to be seen (or, since no writers are attached yet, dreamt up), but we'd expect tricks, heists and possibly one or two pratfalls. Now You See Me 2 arrives here on July 4. The latest trailer is below.