Ever seen a Formula One car driving in front of a baqala? Ruben Fleischer hadn’t either. But on an early scouting trip to Yas Marina Circuit, as the Now You See Me: Now You Don’t director was imagining how Abu Dhabi might shape the film, an idea occurred to him: what if they took one of these cars off the track and into the city's streets for a chase sequence?
He expected a “no." But instead of hesitation, the answer came back immediately: “yes”.
“It wasn’t scripted that way,” Fleischer says. “In the script, one of the characters performs a distraction within the track and does a burnout so everyone turns.
“But I thought to myself, I've seen 1,000 car chases, but I've never seen an actual F1 car on the streets. I was like: 'Can we?' And they were like: 'Sure.'”
It was the first sign that Abu Dhabi wouldn’t just host the film’s third act – it would elevate it. Fleischer and his team had arrived expecting limitations, the usual logistical barriers that come with large-scale action filmmaking.
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