Now You See Me: Now You Don’t director tickled by Louvre heist theory 

LOS ANGELES – Beyond the endless memes, the now-infamous Louvre museum break-in also sparked a half-serious conspiracy theory: that it was all just a promotional stunt for the new movie Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.

And speaking to reporters over Zoom a few weeks after the incident, the film’s director Ruben Fleischer and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher are all tickled by the idea.

The movie is the third in a franchise that follows a group of illusionists known as the Four Horsemen. Played by Eisenberg, Franco, Fisher and Woody Harrelson, they use magic acts to pull off daring heists – not unlike the brazen Oct 19 robbery in Paris, which saw four thieves making off with some of France’s crown jewels.

And in a viral tweet on the social media platform X, a user joked that she initially laughed at the idea of the Louvre theft being staged to promote Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.

Then she remembered that cast member Harrelson was in the French capital at the same time – “and now I’m suspicious”.

Speaking over Zoom in late October, American film-maker Fleischer (Uncharted, 2022; Venom, 2018) says: “While I feel bad for the Louvre, I couldn’t help but smile at the suggestion that the Horsemen were a part of it.

“And it was so funny that someone wrote ‘and Woody Harrelson is in Paris’ that I thought, maybe there is something to this, and maybe this is the greatest marketing ploy in the history of film and television,” adds the 51-year-old, who also worked with Eisenberg and Harrelson on the Zombieland movie comedies (2009 and 2019).

Opening in Singapore cinemas on Nov 13, the movie is a follow-up to Now You See Me (2013) and Now You See Me 2 (2016), which were both critically panned but commercially successful, earning more than US$680 million (S$886 million) in total worldwide.

Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt join the cast as three younger magicians hired to help the Four Horsemen steal a prized diamond from a crime syndicate – a globe-trotting adventure that takes the gang everywhere, from New York and France to South Africa and Abu Dhabi.

American actor Morgan Freeman returns to play the group’s nemesis-turned-mentor.

As with the earlier films, the actors had to learn a few real magic tricks. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t was harder than the last movie “because the director wanted the magic to be practical, not computer effects”, explains Eisenberg.

“So that meant little moves you’d think would be so easy to learn, but took weeks and weeks of practising every day,” says the 42-year-old American star, who took home a Best Actor Oscar nomination for playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the drama The Social Network (2010).

“I have this one thing where I reveal a diamond out of my hand, and it’s a one-second trick, but it just took weeks of practising the exact same move.”

And Franco, 40, has become a bit of a whiz with a deck of cards, just like his character.

“I’ve gotten so good at throwing cards that I can cut a banana in half,” says the American actor, who appeared in the Neighbors comedy films (2014 and 2016) and the horror movie Together (2025).

“But you’ll never find me out in real life carrying a deck of cards and a banana,” he quips.

Since Now You See Me 2, Eisenberg has gone on to more high-profile projects, playing Lex Luthor in the DC superhero films Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016) and Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021).

In 2024, he earned a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for A Real Pain, a comedy-drama he also directed and starred in.

But most fans who approach him do so because of this franchise.

“If I get stopped on the street, there’s a 90 per cent chance it will be somebody who has loved Now You See Me.

“These movies are beloved, and when you’re in a movie series that’s really loved, you want to make sure it’s great,” he says.

That is one reason it took almost a decade to make Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.

“They were trying to figure out the right script. And the storyline in this new movie is so brilliant,” he teases.

“It’s so clever and unexpected that I didn’t even understand it at first.

“And it’s not just us doing magic tricks throughout the movie – the whole movie itself is a magic trick.”

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t opens in Singapore cinemas on Nov 13.