Sony Pictures has spent the last couple of years developing a biopic of Harry Houdini. However it’s still not ready to go in front of the cameras, as Max Landis has come aboard to rewrite the script for the movie.
When it was first announced, Francis Lawrence was attached to direct from a script written by Scott Frank. However the project fell apart when the director left to make The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. At that time the suggestion would be a more relatively conventional telling of Houdini’s story (as opposed to a rival biopic based on a book that says Houdini was a spy), focussing on his attempts to discredit a beautiful spiritualist, although he begin to believe in her.
However this new take on the story will have an H.P. Lovecraft influence.
Landis is best known for writing the 2012 found footage hit Chronicle. He also wrote the script for 20th Century Fox’s Frankenstein, which stars Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy and will be out later this year.