Abu Dhabi’s real-world locations, including a racetrack around a hotel and Louvre Abu Dhabi, anchor the film’s large-scale finale.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t opened No 1 worldwide, grossing more than $75 million in its first weekend.
The film reunites Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco, while introducing Dominic Sessa, Justice Smith and Ariana Greenblatt.
Director Ruben Fleischer emphasised practical, in‑camera magic, requiring weeks of rehearsal for precise sleight-of-hand, which grounded performances in authentic settings.
“There’s a racetrack around a hotel,” actor Jesse Eisenberg says, underscoring how Abu Dhabi “made the magic real.”

This has to be fantasy, right? That’s what Jesse Eisenberg assumed, anyway.

He was reading the script for Now You See Me: Now You Don’t – the third film in the globally popular franchise – and the Abu Dhabi finale seemed too outlandish to exist anywhere outside a green screen or studio build.

“I thought it was a placeholder for something we’d find later,” Eisenberg tells The National. “But it turns out everything was real.

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“There’s a racetrack around a hotel,” he adds. “I couldn’t believe what was actually there until we got there.”

This was no coincidence. Abu Dhabi wasn’t chosen at random – it was built into the film from the start. Long before the cast arrived, while the script was still in the planning stages, the writers and director Ruben Fleischer had anchored the finale in the emirate, convinced the UAE’s architecture and landscapes offered the scale the story needed.

That decision has paid off. Now You See Me: Now You Don’t debuted at No 1 worldwide despite not yet opening in many markets, including the UAE, earning more than $75 million in its first weekend – a striking result for a franchise returning after a 10-year gap. The film will be released in UAE cinemas on Thursday.

While the industry may be surprised by those numbers, the cast aren’t. Eisenberg says the Horsemen have always had an unusually loyal fan base.

“People love the movies,” he says. “If I get stopped on the street, there’s a 90 per cent chance it will be by somebody who has seen me in Now You See Me. These movies are beloved. When you’re in a series that is so loved, you want to make sure it’s great.”