'Now You See Me 3' production: What the box office says about the franchise’s future film?

Another year will pass by without any concrete update on the making of "Now You See Me 3." Avid fans of the movie franchise will then have to be resourceful in finding clues that could help narrow down the possibilities for the third movie.

Profitability is apparently one of the factors considered in producing mainstream movies. It is then interesting to see what the numbers of the first two movies say about the likelihood of seeing "Now You See Me 3" on the big screen.

‘Now You See Me 3’: Is the movie still underway?

When the first movie came out in 2013, it surprised some critics just based on how well it performed in the box office. For an original movie franchise (meaning not an adaptation), “Now You See Me” was praised for its ability to amass huge sales, especially in the international scene. Overall, the first movie saw a worldwide gross sales of over $351 million after having a reported production budget of only $70 million.

The second movie saw a slight decrease in the overall box office gross sales worldwide, which was more than $334 million. Notably, however, the non-US box office shares rose to over 80 percent compared to only 66.5 percent in the first film.

Movie series distributor Lionsgate Films announced its early planning for “Now You See Me 3” back in 2015, so the above-mentioned figures were not even in yet. However, the decline in the total box office numbers did not seem to affect the plans for the third movie. In November 2016, it was reported that Lionsgate hired Neil Widener and James Gavin to work on the third movie’s script.

That was the latest definitive update on the third movie for more than three years, though. The silence on the part of Lionsgate has then led to the worry of others that “Now You See Me 3” might have been canceled already.

‘Now You See Me 3’ cast speculations

If “Now You See Me 3” is still a go, many fans are counting on the main cast members to reprise their roles. That includes Mark Ruffalo as Dylan Shrike/Rhodes or the leader of the Four Horsemen. The group is composed of Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and Lula May (Lizzy Caplan).