Sacha Baron Cohen has
pulled a magician out of his hat with the lead role in the upcoming big screen
adaptation of Lee Falk's 1934 syndicated newspaper comic strip, Mandrake.
The story follows the adventures of an illusionist who with the help of his partner Lothar,
fought a wide variety of evildoers and criminal masterminds including his twin
brother Derek, gangsters, aliens, and extradimensional creatures.
Mandrake's powers
include illusion casting, holographic projections, rapid hypnosis, duplication,
invisibility, and general magic.
Tropic Thunder writer
and Get Hard director Etan Cohen will be directing the project, which Baron
Cohen will produce alongside Charles Roven.
Warner Bros. picked
up the rights to the superhero in 2012 after Disney, as well as Hyde Park and
the Baldwin Entertainment failed for years to develop the property into a
movie.
In 1932 Columbia
Pictures produced a 12-part Mandrake miniseries, and a TV movie in the '70s.
The character also appeared in the short-lived '80s cartoon series Defenders of the
Earth alongside Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Lothar, and their respective sons and daughters.
The project is in
early development with no screenwriters set to work on the draft written by
David People, Janet People, and Tom Wheeler, which apparently has Mandrake
being recruited by the United States government.
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