The race to make a movie starring Harry Houdini is heating up in Hollywood; first Dreamworks buys a script that paired Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as crimefighters and now Columbia Pictures is gearing up its own take on the legendary escape artist. Back in March, Francis Lawrence came on board to direct and now Heat Vision reports that Scott Frank is in talks to write the script. Frank’s previous works include 2002’s Minority Report and 2008’s Marley and Me. If you’d like to wager which one I liked more, I’ll take you up on it.
According the article the film follows Houdini as he tries to prove a spiritualist as a fraud but soon falls for her wiley charms and believes she’s actually legitimate even though it turns out she isn’t. Or something to that effect, I think that made sense.
A lot of people were down on Water for Elephants but I personally enjoyed it and it proved that Lawrence has the chops to make a period piece that looks authentic. I’m also a closet Houdini fan, since girls don’t typically go ga-ga over your knowledge of early 20th century escape artists, and would love to see movies that involve the man regardless if they are factual or not. The big question is: will Dreamworks now put their Houdini flick into production quickly once this one fully gets underway in order to have competing movies in the future? I think it would rival the 1998 “Armageddon Vs. Deep Impact” fight, personally.
Any interest in this Houdini or would you prefer to stick with Dreamworks’ crimefighting take?