This has to be fantasy, right? That’s what Jesse Eisenberg assumed, anyway.
He was reading the script for Now You See Me: Now You Don’t – the third film in the globally popular franchise – and the Abu Dhabi finale seemed too outlandish to exist anywhere outside a green screen or studio build.
“I thought it was a placeholder for something we’d find later,” Eisenberg tells The National. “But it turns out everything was real.
“There’s a racetrack around a hotel,” he adds. “I couldn’t believe what was actually there until we got there.”
This was no coincidence. Abu Dhabi wasn’t chosen at random – it was built into the film from the start. Long before the cast arrived, while the script was still in the planning stages, the writers and director Ruben Fleischer had anchored the finale in the emirate, convinced the UAE’s architecture and landscapes offered the scale the story needed.
That decision has paid off. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t debuted at No 1 worldwide despite not yet opening in many markets, including the UAE, earning more than $75 million in its first weekend – a striking result for a franchise returning after a 10-year gap. The film will be released in UAE cinemas on Thursday.
While the industry may be surprised by those numbers, the cast aren’t. Eisenberg says the Horsemen have always had an unusually loyal fan base.
“People love the movies,” he says. “If I get stopped on the street, there’s a 90 per cent chance it will be by somebody who has seen me in Now You See Me. These movies are beloved. When you’re in a series that is so loved, you want to make sure it’s great.”
The new film is both a reunion and a passing of the baton, bringing together original Horsemen Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco, while introducing a new generation to the team with Dominic Sessa, Justice Smith and Ariana Greenblatt.
This wasn't always the plan. Across the decade since the last film, the project went through multiple rewrites. “They were trying to figure out the right script,” says Eisenberg. “The storyline is so brilliant, that I didn’t even understand it when I first read it. Luckily, when you see it, it’s clear. And it’s not just us doing magic tricks – the whole movie itself is a magic trick and it's so clever.”
For the cast, the magic of Abu Dhabi began the moment they arrived. Locations that had seemed exaggerated on the page – the racetrack looping around W Abu Dhabi hotel, the Louvre’s open-air dome, the desert stretching far beyond what the frame could hold – were not only real, but also ready to be used at full scale. It changed their sense of what the finale could be.
At the same time, the cast were working differently than they had on earlier films. Fleischer pushed for practical magic wherever possible, relying on in-camera tricks rather than digital effects. That meant weeks of rehearsal even for tiny movements that last only seconds on screen.
“I have this little move where I reveal a diamond,” Eisenberg says. “It’s one second, but it took weeks and weeks of practising the exact same thing.”
Fisher went through the same process. “I thought maybe my hands were too small to hide the diamond,” she says. “Then I realised I just lacked co-ordination.”
Fisher says Fleischer’s approach helped the actors find precision without losing spontaneity.
“Ruben really is a purist,” she says. “He stayed true to what he loved about the first movie and wanted it to be more authentic magically. He didn’t try to reinvent anything. It was more about the visuals, and letting us improv and have the space we needed. He’s a beautiful director.”
For newcomer Sessa, whose breakout role came with The Holdovers, the preparation was the most intense he’d experienced.
“I over-prepared because I assumed everyone else would be incredible at it,” he says, laughing. “I thought that was the only way they’d accept me.”
The environment itself shaped the process. Abu Dhabi’s wide plazas, vast desert, long corridors and reflective surfaces gave the cast space to perform tricks in full view. Fisher says filming in locations that had never appeared on screen “gave everything a sense of newness”, while Eisenberg notes that working in physical settings “made everything feel more grounded”.
Sessa says the environment quickly became part of his performance.
“It just felt different from anything I’ve done,” he says. The dome of the Louvre, the scale of the desert, the energy of Yas Island – all of it shaped how he understood the role.
One moment at Louvre Abu Dhabi sealed that connection. While filming under the dome, nearly 300 background actors surprised Sessa by singing Happy Birthday to him in Arabic. “It was incredible,” he says. “It made the whole experience feel connected to the place we were in.”
Those days set the tone for the shoot. The ensemble – returning stars and the new generation stepping in beside them – found themselves in a place that shaped their routines, their chemistry and, in subtle ways, their performances.
For the original Horsemen, stepping back into the roles after a decade felt immediate. Fisher describes them as “my dysfunctional family”, a group that fell back into old rhythms almost instantly. “We were just straight away doing dumb games,” she says.
She admits there was a brief instinct to “haze” the newcomers before quickly realising “they were just the most charming, hilarious and cool group”.
Eisenberg felt the same. “It felt like no time had passed at all,” he says. “We’re all social people. Getting back together felt like a continuation.” What struck him was how easily the younger cast slotted in. “We got lucky with these movies,” he adds. “We all love each other so much.”
What added to that camaraderie was sharing an actual globetrotting experience rather than standing in front of green screens on a backlot. Abu Dhabi became not only the backdrop of the finale, but also a place tied to their own memories of making the film.
Looking back, Eisenberg says what stands out most is how naturally the city shaped the final act. “We were lucky to shoot the last section of this movie in Abu Dhabi,” he says. “Being there made everything feel more real.”
Now You See Me: Now You Don't is in cinemas across the UAE from Thursday
