The Hollywood Reporter reports that Hyde Park Entertainment and Crusader Entertainment are teaming up to create a new movie featuring Mandrake the Magician.  The two companies, who recently joined forces to announce a new film based on Lee Falk's The Phantom comic (see 'The Phantom Heads Back to the Silver Screen'), are obviously not done mining the Lee Falk/King Features stable of heroes, since Mandrake, which Falk created in 1934, is another prime King Features property.  Still syndicated in over 200 newspapers around the world, Mandrake has no superpowers, though he does use hypnotism and illusion to befuddle evildoers. 

 

The writing team of Josh Oppenheimer and Tom Donnelly will write the treatment for the new Mandrake film, which the Hollywood Reporter described as a 'big canvas adventure story' that is set on three continents.  The two recently announced King Features adaptations from Hyde Park and Crusader are just the latest entries in what has to be the biggest wave of comic-influenced films in the history of Hollywood.