Marc Forster attached to direct incredible-but-true WWII story The War Magician

There has been a fair amount of criticism leveled at Marc Forster for the relative mess that was QUANTUM OF SOLACE, though Daniel Craig has been kind enough to go on record saying “we had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t employ a writer to finish it… There was me trying to rewrite scenes – and a writer I am not.”  Which does make me feel a bit better about that how utterly underwhelming that movie was. 

Forster is currently in post-production on WORLD WAR Z, an adaptation of Max Brooks’ extraordinarily good novel of the same name.  Though he hasn’t said yet which of the projects he’s attached to will be next — there’s the post-apocalyptic time-travel-tale THE RUNNER and THE EQUALIZER with Denzel Washington attached to star — he’s added another option because why not.  And because it’s actually a really cool story. 

“David Fisher’s book ‘The War Magician’ tells the true story of British magician Jasper Maskelyne, who adapted the core principles of stage magic to warfare in ways that defied the imagination: among his achievements, Maskelyne hid the port of Alexandria Harbor, made the Suez Canal disappear and tricked Germany’s Gen. Erwin Rommel with a phantom army that didn’t exist, a ruse that ultimately led to Rommel’s defeat and became a turning point of WWII.  Many of Maskelyne’s inventions are still being utilized in warfare.”

The heaps of sheer wonder in FINDING NEVERLAND forever made me a fan of Marc Forster, so that fact coupled with the subject matter of “The War Magician” leaves me extremely excited for this potential project.