Behind the Scenes of a Reality Show Where Magicians Fight for Fame


We know you desperately want to see what happens behind the scenes of your favorite magic competition show. OK, fine, Wizard Wars probably is the only magic competition show, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be your fave, and it’s always fun to see television, um, magic in action.


The video comes from show creator Rick Lax, who shot the footage during the making of Wizard Wars. The program, basically a reality show where magicians face off in something akin to Iron Chef (the original Japanese version, not that sorry Americanized version) but with magicians, started as an internet video made by Lax and some fellow Las Vegas wizards. After the clip made the rounds online (and possibly at the suggestion of WIRED) Syfy turned it into a series judged by Penn & Teller. “Walking around the set was surreal. Such an upgrade from my living room,” Lax says, referring to the set for his video clip.


Magician Justin Flom—known to daytime TV viewers as That Guy Who Seems to Freak Out Ellen DeGeneres, but who matches wits with Wars winners on the show—agrees. “It was bizarre to have a giant cast and crew making essentially a more expensive version of what Ricky and I edited over breakfast at Bellagio cafe in Vegas,” he says.


“The most unlikely part of the YouTube-video-to-Syfy-show transition was that the original Wizard Wars vision stayed in shape,” Lax says. “Everyone told me, ‘Hollywood is going to tear your idea apart,’ but that didn’t happen. Only thing that happened was the magic got bigger and better.”


Find out how much bigger and better when Wizard Wars premieres on Syfy tonight at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central.



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