So you’re Warner Bros., the owner of DC Comics, one of the “Big Two” American superhero comic book companies. You automatically have the film rights to not only iconic characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but other cool superheroes like the Flash, Captain Marvel, Swamp Thing, heck, even Aquaman. So which is the next comic character you’re going to adapt to film?
Why Mandrake the Magician, of course, who you don’t even own.
What the hell? Or more appropriately, who the hell? (As in, “Who the hell is Mandrake the Magician?”)
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. is working on a film based on the 1934 comic strip Mandrake the Magician, about a magician who uses his, well, magic powers to fight crime. Created by Lee Falk (the same man who created The Phantom), the strip was previously adapted as a 1939 film serial and a 1979 TV movie — though no less than Federico Fellini wanted to make a Mandrake film in the mid-1960s. He is arguably the first comic superhero, although since he doesn’t have a particularly superhero-y costume (he looks like your stereotypical magician).
The article suggests the movie will be along the lines of the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movies, which sounds about right for a movie like this. It will be produced by comic distributor King Features Syndicate and Atlas Entertainment, but it’s early in the process so there’s no names yet attached.
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