The Arcanum gathers

If movies are to be believed (and we should, given their usual basis in fact), the world would have been doomed several times over if not for all the various secret societies keeping us from harm.

Thomas Wheeler’s book THE ARCANUM is a fictitious account of real-world figures (hooray for public domain!) that includes noted Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle, voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, escapist Harry Houdini and Cthulhu-worshipping writer H.P. Lovecraft, who band together in 1919 New York to save the planet from supernatural threats. By no coincidence, Wheeler’s high-concept novel seems custom-made for the feature film treatment (an accusation leveled at the work in numerous reviews).

And so it will be. The movie will be directed by Randall Wallace, an Oscar winner for his BRAVEHEART script. Wallace has kept a fairly low profile since writing PEARL HARBOR and directing WE WERE SOLDIERS, a couple of war movies so heavy-handed they make Spielberg seem like a ninja. It remains to be seen if his end result with ARCANUM is more BPRD than LXG.