Comedy and magic mix in “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone”
“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” didn’t experience much box-office magic when it opened March 15.
The PG-13 farce, starring Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi and Jim Carrey as cheesy magicians, grossed just $22.5 million before disappearing from theaters. “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” ($28.99, DVD; $35.99, Blu-ray Disc; June 23), which was budgeted at a modest $30 million, may find a more appreciative audience when it arrives in stores.
In the broad comedy, co-starring Olivia Wilde (as the duo’s glamorous assistant), Alan Arkin and the late James Gandolfini, Carell and Buscemi play struggling big-hair magicians whose friendship fades as their longtime Las Vegas act grows stale. Soon after, a street illusionist (Carrey), who’s known for outrageous stunts, threatens their future.
For Carell, who owned a Mattel magic kit as a child and performed illusions in his parents’ basement, magic and comedy are often parallel.
“I guess I see comedy as a sort of magic, because it either works or it doesn’t,” Carell said in an interview in the British magazine Total Film. “You are creating an illusion. You’re tricking people, in a way.
“People will watch a movie or read a book and it’s going one way. When it goes a direction you don’t expect it to go, that’s when it makes you laugh.”
Most of “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” contains tricks that were filmed by cameras and could easily be manipulated to look real. “30 Rock” director Don Scardino makes his big-screen directing debut with this film, and he asked his Vegas friend, superstar magician David Copperfield, to create a real body-swap trick for Carell and Buscemi to perform.
“We made jokes about him at ’30 Rock,'” Scardino said of Copperfield. “What surprised me was how absolutely generous he was and how forthcoming he was with his help and advice. You know, he’s not being paid anything. And he’s playing himself in the movie as well.”
The extras on the Blu-ray version of “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” include more than 45 minutes of special features, including a featurette (“Making Movie Magic With David Copperfield”), a gag reel, deleted scenes and alternate takes.