For director Dean Parisot
Forget the Devil; it appears real-life magician and escapologist Harry Houdini, despite being dead for 88 years, is pulling of an even greater trick – that of having several companies scrambling to make a film about him first. Lionsgate/Summit has a new ally in its quest, with news that Johnny Depp is in negotiations to star in The Secret Life Of Houdini .
This is one that has been bubbling away since at least 2009, when Summit – in its pre-Lionsgate acquisition days – grabbed the rights to William Kalush and Larry Sloman’s 2006 book, which is subtitled The Making Of America’s First Superhero. Their tome added to controversial claims that the escape expert was an undercover agent for various organisations. The pair claims that he not only worked with British Intelligence, but the US Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies. And the film version, with a script by Noah Oppenheim, posits that he was more of an Indiana Jones-type figure, hunting occult objects around the world.
Dean Parisot is still attached to direct the film, which will have to wait to secure Depp’s services. He’s currently filming Whitey Bulger drama Black Mass and will segue from that into reprising his Mad Hatter role in Alice In Wonderland sequel Through The Looking Glass. Then there’s Disney’s desire to put him back in one of his other big franchises, with a fifth Pirates Of The Caribbean movie floating in dock waiting to sail once the script is shipshape.
Lionsgate and Summit will want to act on this one: Sony has Max Landis re-writing a film that features Houdini’s life with some added Lovecraftian tones.
from Empire News
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