There was a time when Johnny Depp began talks to play famed illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini for director Dean Parisot. That time was 2014, and things have gone awfully quiet since then. Now the project appears to be springing back to life, with word that 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg is in talks to take on the shot-calling job.
Depp appears to be long gone (unless Trachtenberg's name is enough to lure him back), but it's the latest twist for a story that has seen various directors, including Joe Wright and Gary Ross, interested over the years. Back in 2009, Summit snapped up the rights to William Kalush and Larry Sloman’s book The Secret Life Of Houdini, The Making Of America’s First Superhero, which hit bookshelves in 2006 and caused ripples by adding to claims that the escape expert (birth name: Erik Weisz) was an undercover agent for various organisations. The pair claims that he not only worked with British Intelligence, but the US Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies.
It makes sense that Lionsgate (which bought Summit) would want to keep trying with this one: Houdini remains a compelling subject for both movies and TV, with a variety of creative types tying to bring him to the screen again.
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