THE WAR MAGICIAN

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Paramount Conjuring Up "The War Magician"



Development continues on Lonetree Entertainment's "The War Magician", an adaptation of author David Fisher's best-selling novel on the life of British magician Jasper Maskelyne, currently set up at Paramount with Tom Cruise attached to star :

"...'Jasper Maskelyne' was a world famous magician and illusionist in the 1930's. When war broke out, he volunteered his services to the British Army and was sent to Eygpt where the desert war had just begun. He used his skills to save the vital port of Alexandria from German bombers.

"Working for military intelligence, Maskelyne put on a stage show inside the Royal Palace in Cairo in order to locate an enemy spy's radio transmitter. On Malta he developed 'the world's first portable holes'.

"Maskelyne's war culminated in the brilliant deception plan that won the Battle of El Alamein: the creation of an entire dummy army in the middle of the desert

sneakpeek.ca

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Marc Foster who seems to be the nominated director of THE WAR MAGICIAN, did a very bad job with QUANTUM OF SOLACE..

Question : Does Tom still own the rights of the project ?



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What's going on there :

Marc Forster Summons The War Magician




February 2, 2012 4:50 pm


Updated: And as quickly as that Variety say Forster is no longer attached to the project. He is off the film as quickly as that;


Helmer Marc Forster is no longer attached to World War II drama “The War Magician.”

The project, set up at Lonetree Entertainment, is based on David Fisher’s best-selling book and tells the story of real-life British magician Jasper Maskelyne, who adapted the core principles of stage magic to World War II. Forster had been eying the project but is no longer involved, his reps confirmed Thursday.

Previously eyed as a starring vehicle for Tom Cruise and later a potential project for director Peter Weir, Variety reports that Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, Machine Gun Preacher) is the latest who has plans to helm The War Magician, a fascinating World War II saga of illusion.

The film is based on the best-selling non-fiction book by David Fisher and chronicles British magician Jasper Maskelyne, who stunned onlookers during the Second World War when he incredibly hid the Suez Canal, the port of Alexandria Harbor and even fooled Rommel into believing a phantom army existed. These elaborate ‘large-scale ruses, deception, and camouflage’ (as Wiki put it) worked as cover for allied espionage missions and it sounds like material that would make for an interesting film.

As we’ve said Tom Cruise certainly thought so when he bought the book for Paramount but in the end it’s ended up at Lonetree Entertainment, with Lonetree partners Tony Eldridge and Colleen Camp producing.

No word on whose script (if they have one) Forster is working on but Peter Buchman (Che, Jurassic Park III) had turned one in a few years back that could be resurrected.

Forster has just completed filming the zombie warfare blockbuster World War Z that opens at the end of the year. I wonder if he makes the call to Tom Cruise to see if he is still interested in this?

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