Hayden is Mandrake

A new movie based on the old Hearst comic character MANDRAKE has been in the works for ages. The traditional incarnation was a stage magician who battled crime in his spare time between rabbit tricks, but the new version is apparently an edgy illusionist, played by… Hayden Christensen?

Teen Vader will be bringing his midichlorian hocus-pocus to a new MANDRAKE flick, co-starring spellcheck hater Djimon Hounsou and directed by Mimi Leder (DEEP IMPACT, THE PEACEMAKER). And penned by a quintet of writers. The synopsis:

Jackson Mandrake lives life on the edge. Working as an underground magician and escapologist, his act has grown increasingly dangerous. Following a daring escape from an SUV that has been dropped out of an aeroplane at the Burning Man Festival, he is coerced by the CIA into breaking a deep-cover agent named Xi Shing Lung out of a maximum security jail. Hypnosis, contortion, distraction and technical wizardry all come into play as Mandrake breaks the agent out from the inside within a 24-hour deadline.

But back on the outside, Mandrake learns that it was all a set-up. Xi is a CIA agent gone bad. He offers Mandrake the chance to join his crime ring. When Mandrake refuses, he’s a marked man. He must escape his would-be-killers and also the real CIA who accuse him of being in league with Xi. His quest to clear his name leads him into all sorts of dangers, which he must overcome with daredevil escapes that require all his conjuring skills. And along the way, Mandrake is forced to confront his past and the girl he left behind…