With nothing up his sleeve and nothing under his hat, Jesse Eisenberg wants to make the Now You See Me series reappear. Speaking to Variety, the writer, director, and star of The Debut said that “more than anything” he’d like someone, anyone, to write a fourth installment in the magic heist movie franchise. A third, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, came out last year.
Eisenberg is currently promoting The Debut, his new community theater comedy starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti. It’s his follow-up to the Academy Award-winning A Real Pain, a dramatic comedy about cousins who reconnect over their Jewish upbringing by traveling through Poland. But writing, directing, and acting isn’t a “good job for my personality and wiring.” He continues:
“My counter to that is to try to do as many things as possible. And I am unpretentious. The next movie I want to do more than anything is Now You See Me 4, and I’m praying that they write it, because I love that more than anything. I don’t have this feeling that, now that I’m directing these more independent, serious movies, I don’t want to be in something a little more Hollywood-ish. I like working. I feel so lucky to have done what I do, and I feel so hopeful that I get to do it more.”
The series came up when discussing Eisenberg’s Hollywood ascent, from the kid in The Squid And The Whale to directing A Real Pain and The Debut. He explains that wearing multiple hats, whether it be acting, writing, or directing, gives him more options in an unstable industry. “Part of the reason I’m doing so many different things isn’t just because I have this amazing, creative, expansive mind,” he says. “It’s because I’m kind of terrified that none of them will work out. Doing five jobs on this movie is how I protect myself for the future. I can be a writer if you want that, or I can go direct a deodorant ad.”
While he’s more than happy to stay busy directing Right Guard ads, he closes the interview with sage advice from Bob Odenkirk, who suggests the opposite. “Bob Odenkirk screamed at me for writing commercial romantic comedies when I was 21 and said, ‘You’re a thoughtful young person. Be an artist. Write something personal.’ It changed my whole life.” Bob Odenkirk will do that to you.
The Debut debuts on December 11, 2026.
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