During his latest appearance on Hot Ones with Sean Evans, the actor recalled how uncertain he and his costars felt while filming the original movie, which would ultimately become a successful franchise.
Dave Franco Recalls the First Day of ‘Now You See Me’
The franchise follows the Four Horsemen, a team of illusionists who combine elaborate magic performances with increasingly ambitious heists. Franco plays Jack Wilder, a skilled magician and pickpocket who joins Jesse Eisenberg’s Daniel Atlas, Woody Harrelson’s Merritt McKinney and Isla Fisher’s Henley Reeves as one of the group’s original members.
Source: IMDb
According to People, Franco said the production immediately felt difficult to navigate. Rather than projecting confidence about what they were making, the cast apparently reached a much darker conclusion after their first day on set. “I remember at the end of the first day it was such chaos trying to figure it out, that we all went out to dinner and we literally cheersed to the end of our careers,” he recalled.
The joke became particularly memorable in hindsight. Released in 2013, “Now You See Me” went on to earn more than $350 million worldwide and established an audience strong enough to support a sequel in 2016. The franchise eventually expanded with “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” with the first three movies collectively earning more than $933 million worldwide.
Franco has now had enough distance from that first production to see just how dramatically things changed. “Cut to 15 years later, we’ve done three of these things with a forthcoming,” he told Evans.
Despite the cast’s early doubts, “Now You See Me” became one of those pictures whose commercial appeal proved stronger than its initial reception suggested. The series has continued to bring back familiar faces while introducing new members to its ensemble. What began with a cast joking about the end of their careers ultimately became a long-running studio franchise.
