From Marvel’s Sorcerer Supreme to a magician on the battlefields of WWII. Does Benedict Cumberbatch have a thing with magic? The actor will star in War Magician, the latest film from Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow.
Deadline reports Cumberbatch will play Jasper Maskelyne in War Magician, based on the “true” accounts of the stage magician’s service to the British military during WWII. Makelyne claimed to have been involved in counterintelligence operations as part of a unit known as the “Magic Gang”, who devised large-scale ruses, deception, and camouflage to help defeat the Nazis. Many of these accounts have been disputed, mind you.
Nicholas Mariani is writing the script, adapted from a book by David Fisher that was originally published in 1983. A previous attempt to make a War Magician movie in the early 2000s had Peter Weir (Master & Commander) attached to direct Tom Cruise, but questions about the book’s authenticity caused problems.
Anyway, that doesn’t seem to be an issue now. Even if it were a work of total fiction, a magician fighting Nazis sounds pretty damn cool.
