From THR – We’ve been hearing a lot about Houdini lately: first Dreamworks, then Syfy announced projects in development, and now Summit is moving forward on a Houdini feature to call their own.
Summit actually has the earliest claim on a Houdini pic, as they acquired the rights to a biography by William Kalush and Larry Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero, back in 2009. The studio isn’t making a bio-pic, however – they’re developing the project as an action thriller (think Indiana Jones meets Sherlock Holmes), with a story that follows Houdini’s rise as a magician and covert involvement with the Secret Service. Summit has brought on Noah Oppenheim to pen the adaptation.
Now we just have to wait and see which development mire Houdini escapes from first…
Book Jacket:
Handcuff King. Escape Artist. International Superstar. Since his death eighty years ago, Harry Houdini’s life has been chronicled in books, in film, and on television. Now, in this groundbreaking biography, renowned magic expert William Kalush and bestselling writer Larry Sloman team up to find the man behind the myth. Drawing from millions of pages of research, they describe in vivid detail the passions that drove Houdini to perform ever-more-dangerous feats, his secret life as a spy, and a pernicious plot to subvert his legacy.
The Secret Life of Houdini traces the arc of the master magician’s life from desperate poverty to worldwide fame — his legacy later threatened by a group of fanatical Spiritualists led by esteemed British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Initiating the reader along the way into the arcane world of professional magic, Kalush and Sloman decode a life based on deception, providing an intimate and riveting portrayal of Houdini, the man and the legend.
You can read an excerpt here.
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