For a long time there were two movies developing on famed magician and escape artist Harry Houdini. One was a more traditional biopic that had Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) attached at one point. The other was an Indiana Jones meets Sherlock Holmes adventure movie titled The Secret Life of Houdini, based William Kalush and Larry Sloman's book. Gary Ross and Joe Wright circled the latter film at various stages, but it was Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) who settled into the directing job last year, and now it may have a pretty big star in Johnny Depp.
Depp is looking to add to his roster of crazy characters by playing Houdini in The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, which features a script by The Maze Runner's Noah Oppenheimer. There won't be much truth to this version of Houdini's story as the book claims he was a spy for Britain, helped the Secret Service, dabbled in the occult, and was in cahoots with police organizations.
Lionsgate is targeting a November start date after Depp wraps on Whitey Bulger biopic, Black Mass. If that schedule holds true it would push production on Pirates of the Caribbean 5, which still isn't officially green lit, well into 2015. [THR]
