Lionsgate In Talks To Reteam With Ruben Fleischer Post ‘Now You See Me 3’ On ‘The Sun Always Sets In The West’

EXCLUSIVE: Ruben Fleischer has just turned in a director’s cut to the Lionsgate threequel Now You See Me 3 and the studio is looking to get back in business with him again. Word is that the $1.63 billion grossing filmmaker is in talks to helm The Sun Always Sets in the West for the Santa Monica, CA based studio.

The logline at this time is under wraps. The project will be produced by Norman Aladjem, Ray Moheet, and Tim Honigman for Mainstay Entertainment.

Fleischer is the director of Venom which minted $856M around the world for Sony. He also helmed their cult Zombieland franchise movies with Jesse Eisenberg and Emma Stone which count $225M at the global box office. He also directed the feature take of the Sony Playstation game, Uncharted, which grossed $407M worldwide.

Fleischer is the latest Lionsgate franchise director continuing to work with the studio on movies of different sizes; for example, Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence is making Lionsgate his home with a first-look deal and recently helmed the studio’s upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk; and Paul Feig is currently directing Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried in The Housemaid, one of the lit world’s hottest titles, after previously directing A Simple Favor and its sequel for Lionsgate. In addition, there’s Luca Guadagnino who is working on the next iteration of American Psycho. Other big things for Lionsgate down the road include the Johnny Depp-Penelope Cruz reteam Day Drinker; and more projects with faith based brand Kingdom Story Company.

Fleischer is repped by CAA and Warren Dern. 

Now You See Me 3 is opening on Nov. 14. The last movie, Now You See Me 2, opened nine years ago to $22.3M and made $65M domestic, and close to $335M worldwide. All in the franchise counts $686.7M at the global box office.