Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige tends to fall between the stage boards when it comes to the director’s oeuvre. It’s not as blockbuster as his Batman trilogy or as critically acclaimed as Oppenheimer (which sold so well on Blu-ray it led to a major studio shortage) but it no doubt stands as one of his finest achievements: narratively, technically and, yes, magically. And it took years to get to the screen. Distracted and delayed off and on since the days of Memento, The Prestige would end up a feat that stands alone–ironically enough when you think about it…–in Christopher Nolan’s filmography.

But this is just the Pledge. So how did Christopher Nolan turn The Prestige into a minor masterpiece? How did he pull the rabbit out of the hat? Let’s find out: WTF Happened to this movie?!

Christopher Nolan first got wind of The Prestige – Christopher Priest’s 1995 novel, that is – while on a publicity tour for Memento thanks to brother and collaborator Jonathan. And while Priest would prove to be a Nolan fan, he actually wanted Sam Mendes to direct, which would have made it his sophomore effort after 1999’s Best Picture winner American Beauty.

Soon after, the book was optioned by Newmarket Films, distributor of Memento, thus ending up on Nolan’s lap after he had expressed interest in adapting it while on his tour. In came Jonathan Nolan to write the script while Nolan was busy tweaking Insomnia. Knowing that Insomnia came out in 2002 and The Prestige wouldn’t make it to the screen until 2006 shows just how long the Nolans kept this project going. And indeed The Prestige was set to follow Insomnia–and it would have had a little movie called Batman Begins not shined the bat-signal for Nolan and Warner Bros.

With Batman Begins a box office behemoth and start to a massive trilogy, Nolan had even more clout than before, thus allowing him to focus directly–and finally–on The Prestige. Nolan considered adapting Priest’s novel to be a genuine challenge, saying there was enough material for 10 films. The Nolans would start by making necessary changes, removing a subplot involving spiritualism and altering some of the framing devices and perspectives, all changes which Priest was fond of. But with so many viewpoints and time jumps–it’s estimated there is a time jump every minute–they may have made it even more complex! As Nolan put it, there were “interlocking framing devices and interlocking voice-overs combined with the notion of structuring using the three-act structure of the trick.”

That three-act structure involves the Pledge, the Turn and the Prestige–the pledge being where the audience is shown something ordinary; in the Turn, that ordinary becomes extraordinary; and the Prestige–the “hardest part”–brings it all back to complete the trick. And this was exactly how the screenplay was modeled.

Within, there are observations and analyses on class distinctions–the rich vs. the working class–rivalry, jealousy, and deceit, all themes which help make The Prestige far more interesting than in what might be considered a typical period piece. There, too, would be the themes of duality, both literal and metaphorical–but more on that with the cast…

The stars of The Prestige would both be locked in by Christopher Nolan in late 2005. As showman magician Robert Angier (“The Great Danton”), Hugh Jackman was cast before anyone else for his sheer magnetism and stage presence (Jackman began professional stage work in the mid-’90s). Opposite him would be Christian Bale as Alfred Borden aka The Professor. Bale actually rallied for the part after first casually chatting about the project before Batman Begins even started production. Bale even somehow got a hold of the script but Nolan still has no idea how!

Another Batman Begins alum, Michael Caine, was signed on to play stage engineer John Cutter, while Scarlett Johansson (Olivia Wenscombe, assistant to Angier and Borden at various times) was even easier to get onboard once Jackman and Bale were cast. One who took a little more effort was David Bowie, cast in the small but pivotal role of Nikola Tesla, sought partly because he isn’t a movie star (but is still a damn good actor). But Bowie turned it down–until Nolan flew out to personally convince him.

The supporting cast would include: Piper Perabo as the wife of Angier who suffers for others’ art; Rebecca Hall as Borden’s wife and, yes, another victim; Andy Serkis as Tesla’s assistant; and real-life magician Ricky Jay who, along with Michael Weber, helped train the leads…to a degree.

Before filming could begin, however, the script needed to be completed. And it was…three days before cameras rolled on The Prestige, on January 16th, 2006.

Production on The Prestige was by most accounts relatively smooth, although Jackman and Bale did get into minor quibbles over their own interpretations of their respective characters. There were some personality differences as well, as Jackman is a lover of all things theater (fitting his character perfectly) and Bale having rarely stepped onto the boards. These thespian differences worked out perfectly for their characters: Algier is the showman (long before Jackman was “the greatest showman”) and Borden the discarded magician still confident in his skills. While their on-set dynamic was far from contentious, the source novel has many similarities to the more heated and legendary rivalry between Ching Ling Foo and Chung Ling Soo in the early 1900s.

Speaking of the era…Despite being set in the 1890s, Nolan wanted to keep The Prestige as modern as possible. As such, it turned out that they found plenty of locations in Los Angeles that could double for turn-of-the-century London, primarily in the theater district: the Los Angeles Theatre, the Los Angeles Belasco, the Palace Theatre, and the Tower Theatre. According to production designer Nathan Crowley–whose work began well in advance, building models and doing tests in Nolan’s garage while he was still working on the script–these buildings “haven’t been touched since the ’20s and ’30s, and a lot of them are built in a Victorian style.” On the design, Crowley noted, “We were looking at the Victorian era and trying to find a new angle…There’s a realism and rawness to the period that is similar to the chaos of cities today.”

Additional filming took place in Chicago for some scenes involving Tesla, with the team utilizing Universal backlots to stand in for other parts of London and Colorado. Really they only built one set from the ground up (literally!): an “under-the-stage section that houses the machinery that makes the larger illusions work.”

To help bridge turn-of-the-century London of the setting and the modern times in which it was shot, Nolan again used cinematographer Wally Pfister (Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins up to that point), who took visual inspiration from the paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw. He even shot the whole film himself, further underlining the trust between director and cinematographer. Pfister even used quite a bit of handheld, something almost never used in period pieces but matching the aforementioned “realism and rawness” Nolan wanted. At the same time, he often used natural light (ala Barry Lyndon), even employing candles when necessary.

As for the actual magic we see onscreen…Well, despite what it looks like, Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale (whose grandfather was a magician!) were far from being expert magicians, separately saying, “We didn’t learn as much as you’d think. In fact, I couldn’t show you anything. It was very frustrating,” and, “They basically taught us exactly whatever we needed to pull off the shot, and nothing else.” There was some one-handed deck-shuffling and the like, but Ricky Jay and Michael Weber kept the secrets close, making sure they knew precisely where the camera would be so they could determine what should or shouldn’t be revealed. As Jackman put it, Jackman: “We’ve got nothing we can do at a party – our kids keep asking to do them a magic trick and we don’t have anything!” He did at least learn how to make a ball disappear, so…ta-da? It’s no wonder that, as Nolan recalled, they didn’t receive “any death threats from The Magic Circle,” referring to the British group that has been promoting the art–and secrets–of magic since 1905.

Filming on The Prestige commenced on April 9th, three days ahead of schedule, with editing complete on September 22nd. Less than one month later, Christopher Nolan was going head to head with Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood, with three-weeker The Departed and fellow debuter Flags of Our Fathers also in theaters. Released on October 20th, 2006, The Prestige opened at #1 with $14.8 million. It would go on to gross $53.1 million domestically and $109.7 worldwide, enough to recoup its $40 million budget. Sure, these aren’t Batman numbers, but for a non-linear movie about magicians set at the end of the 19th century, that’s pretty good!

Going in, Nolan knew it would be a tough sell, saying, “There will be some who are baffled…some who will profess a dislike of being duped, some who claim to know the secret, and some, the happy majority, who will simply take the illusion for granted and enjoy the magic for the sake of entertainment.” Fortunately, he was right, and the majority of moviegoers were happy, as reviews were mostly positive, with most praise going towards the film’s structure, twists and technical aspects. Both Pfister and Crowley earned Oscar nominations for their cinematography and art direction, respectively, although both lost to Pan’s Labyrinth.

2006, as it turned out, was the Year of Magic at the Movies. In addition to The Prestige, we also got the Edward Norton-starring The Illusionist and Woody Allen’s Scoop–and they all came out within three months of each other! But The Illusionist had some reliance on CGI (thus removing the magic), while Scoop is definitely low-to-mid-tier Woody Allen.

But it’s Christopher Nolan’s film that pulls off all the tricks: the Pledge, the Turn, the Prestige. Structured like a genuine magic act, Nolan’s break between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight is a minor masterpiece of deception and magic–both cinematic and theatrical. And while Memento showed Nolan as a master of nonlinear storytelling, Insomnia laid the foundation for his abilities to direct major stars and Batman Begins showed he could enrapture audiences, The Prestige is the director truly taking command of the craft and the audience.

The only question is: now, were you watching closely?