The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a 2013 American comedy film directed by Don Scardino and written by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, based on a story by Chad Kultgen and Tyler Mitchell, along with Daley and Goldstein. The film follows Las Vegas magician Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) as he attempts to reunite with his former partner Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) to take on dangerous street magician Steve Gray (Jim Carrey). It also features Alan Arkin, Olivia Wilde, and James Gandolfini in his final film appearance during his lifetime.
Development began in 2006, when New Line Cinema bought Kultgen's script, "Burt Dickenson: The Most Powerful Magician on Planet Earth". The process gained momentum when Charles McDougall was hired as director in 2011, but he eventually left the project and was replaced with Scardino. Daley and Goldstein rewrote Kultgen's script which then had further rewrites from Jason Reitman in June 2011.
Filming was scheduled to begin in October 2011 in Los Angeles, California, but was pushed back to January 2012. On a $30 million budget, filming began on January 10, 2012, in Nevada with filming later moving to Los Angeles. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone was released on March 15, 2013, and earned over $27 million. Reviews generally praised Carrey's and Arkin's performances, but criticized the plot's inconsistent tone and predictability. Variety magazine listed The Incredible Burt Wonderstone as one of "Hollywood's biggest box office bombs of 2013" when it had made $27.4 million against a $30 million production cost.
Plot In 1982, young Albert Weinselstein is harassed by bullies. His mother gives him a special magic trick set by veteran magician Rance Holloway as his birthday present. He studies the instructional video and begins to practice some tricks, attracting the attention of a classmate, Anthony Mertz. They practice together and eventually become professional stage magicians Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton, earning them success and an ongoing headlining act at the Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas. However, after ten years of performing the same tricks over and over again, Burt has become an overconfident, egocentric prima donna, and Anton begins to get fed up with Burt's ego, which has already cost them previous female assistants, all called "Nicole" in the act. In a rush, Burt enlists production assistant Jane as the new Nicole.
Burt and Anton encounter up-and-coming street magician Steve Gray performing a unique yet disturbing card trick for his TV magic show, Brain Rapist. Audience numbers soon dwindle at Burt and Anton's show, upsetting Bally's owner Doug Munny. Taking a cue from Gray's endurance-based stunts, Anton suggests that he and Burt try a similar tack—locking themselves in a Plexiglas cage called the "Hot Box" hung above Las Vegas Strip. Overconfident, Burt does not prepare for the stunt and almost instantly falls into a panic, causing the stunt to fail and injuring Anton, who angrily ends his partnership with Burt, and Jane also quits.
Burt refuses to change his act, staging his two-man show alone to disastrous results. Munny shuts down the production and Burt, having squandered his earnings over the years, is left broke. Despondent, Burt tries to find work and is eventually hired as an entertainer at an assisted-living facility catering to former Vegas entertainers. There, he meets Holloway, who retired several years before because he found that he was no longer happy performing. To show Holloway what the magician industry has become, Burt shows him Gray's performances which include feats such as sleeping all night on hot coals, holding his pee in for 12 days, keeping his eyes open for 3 days while being doused with mace, and regurgitating hard candy. In the process, Burt is shocked to see Jane—herself an aspiring magician—working for Gray. Appalled by Gray's style, Holloway and Burt polish their own tricks. Holloway also counsels Burt about magic, inspiring him to remember the initial wonder that led him to become a magician. Jane visits her grandmother at the facility and patches things up with Burt.
Doug is opening a new casino-hotel and is offering a five-year contract to the winner of a talent search on the casino's opening night. He invites Burt to do a magic show at his son's birthday party, but Gray also appears and tries to upstage Burt with his own tricks. Disgusted by Gray's actions, Jane leaves his show. Burt reconnects with Anton, who has been distributing magic sets in Cambodia. A drug found in Cambodia called kratom that instantly puts users into a deep sleep gives them an idea to perform a sensational trick that they were never able to perfect: the "Disappearing Audience".
At the talent search show, Gray's performance involves him drilling into his brain, in which he survives but leaves him with brain damage. Holloway then introduces Burt, Anton, and Jane's performance before they secretly sedate the audience with kratom sleeping gas to awaken at an outside location in the same seating arrangement. The audience responds with awe, and Doug awards the headlining act to Burt and Anton; they ask Jane to be their opening act. The trio then performs the Disappearing Audience trick again, returning everyone to the casino theater, as the now mentally-impaired Gray watches on with the drill bit still in his skull.
The final scene shows how Burt, Anton, Holloway, and others transported the audience to the open area, by unceremoniously dragging and transporting the unconscious audience members to the area, and hauling them from and to the theater in a moving van.
Cast
Steve Carell as Albert Weinselstein / Burt Wonderstone, a formerly successful magician. The character's design is based partly on famous magicians Siegfried & Roy. Mason Cook, who was eleven years old in 2012, portrays Wonderstone as a child. Cook learned several magic tricks under a magic supervisor to portray Wonderstone as he begins to discover magic. Steve Buscemi as Anthony Mertz / Anton Marvelton, Wonderstone's former partner. Buscemi entered negotiations for a role on October 31, 2011. Luke Vanek, who was eleven years old in 2012, portrays Marvelton as a child. Jim Carrey as Steve Gray, a street-magician with a dangerous act. Carrey entered negotiations for a role in the film in October 2011. The character was described by Scardino as "if David Blaine and Criss Angel had a child", but that Carrey is "such an idiosyncratic performer, he's not quite either of those guys." Carrey undertook a strict diet to lose weight and improve his physique for the role. The character was originally written as a low-key, bored villain who spoke so quietly that people would lean in to hear him, but after Carrey joined he wanted to take the character in a "Jesus-y" direction. Adam Pally was considered for the role. Olivia Wilde as Jane, Burt and Anton's assistant who dreams of becoming a magician. On October 27, 2011, it was reported that Wilde, Michelle Monaghan, Judy Greer, Sarah Silverman, and Jessica Biel were in contention for the female lead. This list was reduced to Silverman, Wilde, and Greer, with all making strong impressions on the filmmakers but with Wilde as the front-runner. It was later reported that the filmmakers were waiting for Biel's audition before their final decision. James Gandolfini as Doug Munny, billionaire owner of the Bally's Casino where Burt and Anton perform. Gandolfini was reported to be in talks for the role on October 29, 2011. In early December, Gandolfini traveled to Las Vegas to research his role, speaking with magicians Criss Angel and Nathan Burton, and The Mirage casino president Felix Rapaport and executive Kenny Epstein, and philanthropist Larry Ruvo. Rappaport stated that Gandolfini wanted to prepare for the role by "getting insights in Las Vegas, specifically in the entertainment world and the world of magic". Alan Arkin as Rance Holloway, an elderly magician who inspired Burt to become a magician. Holloway was originally scripted to die, but the studio decided that audiences would have too much of a connection to the character and so he remained alive.
The cast also includes: Jay Mohr as magician Rick the Implausible; Michael Herbig as Lucius Belvedere, a magician with a German background and a thing for cats; Zachary Gordon as a bully from Wonderstone's youth; Brad Garrett as Dom, Burt's accountant; Gillian Jacobs as Miranda, a fan of magic who has a one-night stand with Wonderstone; and illusionist David Copperfield cameos as himself. The film's co-writer John Francis Daley cameos as a paramedic.
Production Development Development started in 2006 when New Line Cinema bought Chad Kultgen's script, titled "Burt Dickenson: The Most Powerful Magician on Planet Earth". By September 2010, Steve Carell had joined the film, and the script had been completely rewritten by screenwriting team John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. The pair extensively researched the lifestyle of Vegas magicians, taking note of the pressure of performing multiple times a day and the consequence of living within the "Vegas bubble where you're not exposed to the outside world [which] can actually make someone stir-crazy or egotistical". In July 2011, the story was described as following Burt Wonderstone, a formerly successful magician who was overshadowed by a younger, edgier magician. However, by the time Jim Carrey had joined the project in October 2011, the younger magician character had become simply a rival magician, and Burt was now part of a formerly successful magic duo.
The script went through many changes during its years of development, with Daley and Goldstein alone writing approximately fifteen drafts over a three-and-a-half-year period. There were four different final acts, including one where Holloway is revealed as a betrayer. Discussing the script changes while the project entered production, producer Chris Bender said: "it was tone, finding the right tone, because it was originally written more broadly where certain magic things were happening that wouldn't actually be real magic and also, over time, the references that we were making in terms of the new school of magic and the old school of magic were becoming dated... Once [Carell] came on board, that's when things really took off... And then finding the right director, too. These kind of comedies scare directors a lot because you're taking a chance and you're going for something bold comedy-wise that either could be a big hit or it could really miss." Scenes of the young Wonderstone being inspired by a video of Rance Holloway, and buying a magic set were based on Daley's own childhood, in which he viewed a similar video of magician Mark Wilson.
In February 2011, director Charles McDougall joined, but by April 2011, McDougall had left the project with no reason cited. In June 2011, 30 Rock director Don Scardino was confirmed to take the director chair. On June 16, 2011, Jason Reitman was brought aboard the project to perform additional rewrites to Daley's and Goldstein's script. Reitman was reportedly paid for several weeks of work, but the extent of his involvement or the script changes was not detailed.
Michael Schur, who produced and wrote for Carell on The Office, also provided a rewrite of the script.
Filming