A couple of months ago, we reported that that Water for Elephants director Francis Lawrence was eyeing a biopic of Houdini, and now that project is moving forward, with THR reporting that Scott Frank (Minority Report, The Lookout) is in talks to write the film.
Lawrence’s Houdini flick is just one of three doing the rounds in Hollywood at the moment, but his is the only one that plans to take a relatively conventional look at the magician’s life (although upping the romance factor), with the others going more the Sherlock Holmes route and making the escapologist’s life rather fanciful and action-packed. This movie will centre on Houdini’s attempts to discredit a beautiful spiritualist, although he becomes obsessed with her and starts to believe she is actually the real deal.
The other Houdini projects include one called The Secret Life of Houdini, which is based on a biography of Harry Houdini written by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. Summit Entertainment hired Noah Oppenheim to adapt the book, which alleges the magician also carried out secret spy missions for the British government.
DreamWorks meanwhile has bought J. Michael Straczynski’s screenplay Voices From the Dead, which explores and fictionalises Harry Houdini’s real-life friendship with Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. In this story, the two team up to solve bizarre mysteries in 1920s New York City.
It’s not known when any of them might shoot, and it’s unlikely all will get made, but which will go ahead isn’t clear at the moment.