Jeff Nathanson has signed to write and direct the adaptation of William Kalush and Larry Sloman's Harry Houdini biography "
The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero" for Summit Entertainment.
The book, published in 2006 by Atria Books, made waves at the time for insinuating that Houdini was a spy for Britain and was asked to be an adviser to Czar Nicholas II's court in pre-revolutionary Russia. The book also portrayed the master escape artist and magician as a debunker of con artists who pretended to be spiritualists, leading to the theory that his death was caused by the spiritual movement as payback.