There are all kinds of exciting upcoming 2025 movies I’m looking forward to as we soon enter the second half of the year, but since the Now You See Me movies arrived for those with a Netflix subscription I’ve been getting more amped for the third movie, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. When I caught the trailer this week, I wasn’t expecting it to call back to a dangerous stunt from the original film. I need to talk about it.
That Time Isla Fisher Almost Died Filming Now You See Me
Have you heard the story from Now You See Me regarding the water tank scene? Well, I was recently reminded of the story behind it when I came across an old interview on Instagram. Here’s what Isla Fisher told On Demand Entertainment when she was on the Now You See Me press tour:
I had a near-death experience. My character was submerged in a tank and piranhas were dropped upon her head. And whilst in there, we shot it over three and a half days, even though I had a quick-release magnetic thing on my handcuffs, the chain that went between my ankles and my wrist was not able to be broken and it got stuck underneath this slat, and I was trapped.
As you may recall, early in the 2013 movie, Isla Fisher’s magician character of Henley Reeves performs an escapist act where she attempts to get out of being handcuffed in a water tank in under a minute before piranhas are unleashed on her. During the scene, Fisher fakes out the audience by pretending there’s a problem and banging on the glass. Here’s what happened when Fisher really felt trapped in the tank in her words:
I was very scared. And I was banging and saying ‘Set me free!’ But everyone just thought I was doing fabulous acting. They thought I was being Meryl Streep in the tank. Actually I was drowning. All I was thinking about was me on the autopsy table bloated in a swimming costume, with heels and how humiliating that would be.
I can’t even imagine! There’s been a lot of actors who have incidents while filming movies, but this one is especially scary because she actually could have died if the crew never caught on that she wasn’t acting, but really needed help.
So Why Does Now You See Me 3 Have A Water Tank Scene, Too?
That brings me to what we know about Now You See Me 3, which is officially called Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. The movie’s first trailer dropped in late April to introduce what to expect, which is the return of The Four Horsemen, consisting of Jesse Eisenberg’s J. Daniel Atlas, Woody Harrelson’s Merritt McKinney, Isla Fisher’s Henley Reeves and Dave Franco’s Jack Wilder.
This time they’ll be teaming up with a younger group of magicians played by Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa and Ariana Greenblatt for a heist involving the world’s largest queen diamond from a family crime syndicate. Check out the trailer below:
If you look closely at around two minutes, you’ll see that there’s a scene being previewed where not only Henley, but all the Horsemen are dropped into a water tank and one shot calls back to the original with Fisher’s character banging on the glass. The trailer shows that the Four Horseman definitely finds a way out of the tank somehow, but I’m so curious about how the stunt was accomplished and how Fisher felt about the whole thing after her traumatizing moment on the set of the original.
It is kind of sweet that all the other main leads did it with her, and I’m excited by the scene, I’ve got to say. But I need to know more about how and why another water tank scene got written and approved after the hullabaloo surrounding the first movie’s stunt. Anyways, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t hits theaters on November 14, 2025.