Was this supposed to be a trilogy? Was(spoiler)

Seems like it. I remember they said something like

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I don't know."

This pretty much sums up an excuse for turning him into a good guy just to make another twist.

Not to begin with. I think the powers that be realised the potential for a film franchise when production was already underway.

Also, the writers are different.

The characters and story in Now You See Me were created by Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt. They also wrote the screenplay, along with Ed Solomon.

But Yakin and Ricourt had no involvement on Now You See Me 2. Solomon took over writing the screenplay entirely for Now You See Me 2 and worked on the story with Peter Chiarelli.

Ricourt and Yakin simply receive an acknowledgement for being the original creators of these characters.

As a result of this new direction, a lot of the internal logic of the first film (what little there was, but at least that film was aware of it and didn't take itself too seriously) is rendered null and void by the events of the second film e.g. the big reveal about Morgan Freeman's character.

I still enjoyed it and just embraced it's utter ridiculousness, but the second film does end up being something of nothing.

I enjoyed Daniel Radcliffe's character the most, primarily because it felt like he actually had a reason to be there, a solid motivation. A lot of the time I didn't actually feel like rooting for the horsemen.

I don't think it was when they were making the first. As they started work on the second however, I believe a trilogy was announced and planned out. I hope so anyway, because if this one doesn't lead to a solid conclusion then the series overall is a dud with only a good first entry.

It was something they pulled out of their asses at the last minute.