 A year later , the option on the book became available and was purchased by Aaron Ryder of Newmarket Films . In late 2001 , Nolan became busy with the post @-@ production of Insomnia , and asked his brother Jonathan to help work on the script . The writing process was a long collaboration between the Nolan brothers , occurring intermittently over a period of five years . In the script , the Nolans emphasized the magic of the story through the dramatic narrative , playing down the visual depiction of stage magic . The three @-@ act screenplay was deliberately structured around the three elements of the film 's illusion : the pledge , the turn , and the prestige . " It took a long time to figure out how to achieve cinematic versions of the very literary devices that drive the intrigue of the story , " Christopher Nolan told Variety : " The shifting points of view , the idea of journals within journals and stories within stories . Finding the cinematic equivalents of those literary devices was very complex . " Although the film is thematically faithful to the novel , two major changes were made to the plot structure during the adaptation process : the novel 's spiritualism subplot was removed , and the modern @-@ day frame story was replaced with Borden 's wait for the gallows . Priest approved of the adaptation , describing it as " an extraordinary and brilliant script , a fascinating adaptation of my novel . " 
