‘Now You See Me 2’ actress Lizzy Caplan Brushes Off Risky Stunts on Set; Could Sequel Top Original at Box Office?

‘Now You See Me 2’ actress Lizzy Caplain admitted that despite the risky stunts on the filming set, everyone got out fairly unscathed. She plays new magician Lula in replacement of Isla Fisher’s Henley. Meanwhile, speculations emerged of the sequel possibly topping the original film in the box office.

According to a video of Caplan’s interview on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ posted on Just Jared, the actress talked a little bit about the sequel’s appeal. She said, “…We’re like bad*ss magicians but I wasn’t in the first one so it doesn’t really matter what happened in that one. But in the second one, we take on this kind of evil tech magnate and we’re kind of like two steps behind. In the first one they were like two steps ahead so automatically, it’s a more exciting movie.”

When asked if she had to learn real magic tricks for her role as Lula, she admitted that they had to go through a “magic camp” for a week in order to add some authenticity to their characters. A clip of Lula meeting Jesse Eisenberg’s character Danny was shown during the show to which Caplan said, “This is not CGI… this is a legit thing.” The clip showed Lula’s head seemingly being chopped off by a guillotine.

Caplan admitted, “It was not not painful,” after explaining the technique behind the trick. She also revealed that although there were a number of stunts involved in the making of the sequel, she said that it was fairly safe on set. When asked if any actresses were harmed during filming, she replied, “No. I made it through. There was like a zipper thing involved too so I think I got a zipper slice or two and that’s it. No big deal.”

Director Jon Chu highlighted the differences between Caplan’s new character and Isla Fisher’s original escapist Henley in a previous interview. He said, “We definitely did not want to tread on Henley territory. She was so great and we loved Henley. Lula is actually a fan of the Horsemen and of the Eye and all these things of what she thinks is true. She has studied them as well.” He added that Lula’s magic is of the geeky and gross kind saying, “It’s very bloody and things are always being cut off.”

The first film had a total worldwide gross of $351.7 million at the box office against a $75 million production budget. According to Forbes, a sequel does not have to out-gross its predecessor to be considered a success. As far as the movie industry goes, follow-ups usually earn less than its original films despite a few exceptions.

As in the case of ‘Magic Mike’ versus its sequel ‘Magic Mike XXL’, the first film brought in $167 million worldwide while the second earned $122 million. Despite what the numbers say, production cost rose considerably in the making of the sequel – the first having a budget of $7 million while the second having a budget of $14.5 million.

It may make more sense for production companies to keep to a lesser budget in order to see larger profits should their new film make more in terms of box office numbers.

‘Now You See Me 2’ is a follow-up for the 2013 caper thriller film of the same name. It is distributed by Summit Entertainment and produced by Bobby Cohen and Robert Orci with David Copperfield co-producing. The sequel is scheduled to be released in theaters on June 10, 2016.