We’ve had revivals for Flash Gordon, The Phantom and now, another King Features comic strip hero: Mandrake The Magician. This one, however, doesn’t come from Dynamite’s increasing line of classic character series – They’re too busy crossing everyone over in Prophecy – but from Hollywood, which is apparently planning a big screen moment of movie magic for the character:
Warner Bros. is conjuring up Mandrake the Magician, picking up the movie rights to the classic comic strip with Atlas Entertainment producing… Warners now wants to give the character a 21st century makeover, the same way it did for Sherlock Holmes, and is on the hunt for new writers.
I’ve never really gotten into Mandrake; he’s seemed encased in nostalgia and the past to me, pretty much because he hasn’t had the revivals that Flash or the Phantom have (And, to be fair, the Phantom has always seemed curiously old fashioned to me, as well), but I’m curious to see what a Sherlock Holmes-style 21st century makeover actually means, never mind what it could do for the character. Grimy turn of the 19th/20th century magician adventures? I might end up enjoying that quite a bit, really…
March 15th, 2012 at 7:47 am
I’m a firm believer that execution is everything. you get the right script, stars, director and so on, it’s possible you could have a hit with anything. you could also have all those things and still have a bomb. however, all things being equal, i think the only people who would be excited to hear this is in development (without anyone attached) are septuagenarians and above. i mean, sherlock holmes is one of the most recognizable popculture figures on the planet (mickey mouse, superman, sherlock was on a list i read long ago.) mandrake, not so much.
March 30th, 2012 at 3:08 am
Mandrake was featured in Indrajal Comics published in India up until 1990. I am sure folks who grew up reading these comics would be interested.
Hopefully Hollywood doesn’t dumb this down too much. Would be interesting if they brought in a bit of Dr. Strange-style mysticism into the mix as well.