Sacha Baron Cohen Set To Play Mandrake the Magician

For several years the idea of a movie based on the classic character, Mandrake The Magician, has been doing the rounds of Hollywood, but nobody has quite figured out how to make it work. However, Tinseltown hasn’t given up on the idea and now it’s ended up at Warner Bros., with THR reporting that Sacha Baron Cohen is now attached to star, and will develop the movie alongside Tropic Thunder writer Etan Cohen.

Lee Falk created Mandrake in 1934, with the illusionist a powerful hypnotist who uses his abilities to fight crime with Lothar, one of the strongest men in the world. Universal Pictures produced a 12-part serial based on the comic strip in 1939, but the character has not been seen on the big screen since then.

Disney owned rights for several years in the early 2000s, before they were acquired by Baldwin Entertainment and Hyde Park. Atlas Entertainment picked up the rights in 2009, and even commissioned a script by Janet Peoples and David Webb Peoples (12 Monkeys), before they teamed up with Warner Bros. It now looks like they may be trying to take things in a more comedic direction.