Continuing the trend of unneeded sequels, Lionsgate has confirmed that they are planning a sequel for Now You See Me, the magic-based film released earlier this year.
The Hollywood Reporter says that while it did reasonably well here in the United States, its performance worldwide is the reason for the Now You See Me sequel, which is scheduled for production next year. According to Box Office Mojo, Now You See Me has pulled in $115.5 million domestically and $117.6 million internationally.
While $233 million total is nothing to sneeze at, the amount of its gross coming internationally is not unusual. Other 2013 non-sequels Epic, The Great Gatsby, and The Croods all brought in just as much, if not more internationally.
Now You See Me still has the potential to make more as it has yet to open in China, Australia, and Japan. Lionsgate is predicting that it will bring in over $150 million total internationally when all is said and done.
While the film has done reasonably well financially, reactions to the film have been nothing short of mixed. Now You See Me holds a 48% rating on the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. On the other hand, CinemaScore, the site that measures audience’s reactions to movies, gives it an A-, showing that many moviegoers have reacted well to it.
We’ve seen this personally too. We weren’t fond of it as we thought it lacked character, used impossible, unexplainable tricks as a crutch, and had a very dumb twist at the end. On the other hand, we’ve heard from numerous people saying it was a highly enjoyable time at the movies.
Does Now You See Me need a sequel? When it comes to this point, we’re not sure. We won’t discuss the end of the movie here, but the end was left ambiguous. After the plot twist, the films heist was over. It could be interesting to see if they decide to make the film another heist movie, or if they use magic in a different way. We’d have rather the end just be left as is.