Lionsgate is moving forward in producing a much-awaited biopic of famed escape artist Harry Houdini. A Dan Trachtenberg-directed feature film has been ordered, with producer Frank Marshall ("Gremlins", "Back To The Future") on board.
The film, which will be based off of William Kalush and Larry Sloman's 2006 book, "The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero", will view Houdini as "an adventurer, master of magic, and an investigator of the occult," in an "Indiana Jones"-like fashion. So far no actors have been officially attached to play the lead, but reports from years back have mentioned Johnny Depp to have been in the running.
A good number of directors from Dean Parisot ("Galaxy Quest") to Joe Wright ("Atonement") have been tapped to direct the long-gestating project, but it seems Trachtenberg, who directed the recent sleeper sci-fi thriller "10 Cloverfield Lane", will be the one to helm the freshly greenlit project. A commercial and a critical success, "10 Cloverfield Lane" followed the story of a woman who wakes up inside an underground doomsday bunk where she meets two men who claim that gargantuan extraterrestrials roam above ground. The film, marketed as a companion film to the J.J. Abrams-produced found-footage thriller "Cloverfield", became an instantaneous cult hit.
Trachtenberg's involvement with the project will undoubtedly rile up fans eager to see more of the young director, and the recent uptick in the audience's interest in magic and mysticism (see: Marvel's "Doctor Strange" surpassing the $600M worldwide box office mark, and the more recent success of the "Harry Potter" prequel "Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them"), there should be enough interest to see this film make it through.
As the project is in its very early stages of development, no playdates have been disclosed as yet. Rest assured, however, that we will alert you once new information becomes available.
Source: Screen Rant