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Is Benedict Cumberbatch set for another magical role after Doctor Strange?

December 16th, 2015 by Irwin Fletcher Comments

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Benedict Cumberbatch seems to be having a busy time at the moment and has no end to what he can do. Last year he Famously played Smaug in The Hobbit franchise.  Recently, he has starred in crime drama Black Mass with Johnny Depp, he is also set to star as his famous Sherlock in a one off BBC Christmas special The Abominable Bride, he has a brief yet somewhat controversial role in the new Zoolander 2, out next year, and to add to this he is also starring as Dr Strange in Marvel’s new Dr Strange film.

Well surprisingly he has also recently been attached to star in new film The War Magician.

The story of The War Magician is as follows: “[The} story of real-life magician and illusionist Jasper Maskelyne, who, along with a group of colleagues dubbed The Magic Gang, became an integral part of a unit focused on the action along the Suez Canal in World War II. He devised ingenious – and very large scale – illusion systems that virtually made tanks invisible from the air, hid whole buildings full of ammunition and supplies, and even made an entire city vanish and reappear several miles away. Maskelyne joined the Royal Engineers at the start of the war, thinking that his skills could be used to create camouflage. He convinced skeptical officers by creating the illusion of a German warship on the Thames using only mirrors and a model. The military eventually deployed him to the North African theatre in the Western Desert, although he spent most of his time there entertaining the troops. But his work was enough that he ended up on Hitler’s personal blacklist.”

Despite rumours of Marc Foster being the possible director it seems that this is not the case. As yet there is no director and only Gary Whitta has been confirmed to write the screenplay.  Studio Canal is set to make the film but will likely have to wait for the busy schedule of Cumberbatch before anything actually happens. It’s therefore unknown when this film will be out.

It won’t be Cumberbatch’s first war film. He has starred briefly in Warhorse and had the leading role as Alan Turing in the Imitation Game.

Cumberbatch’s next endeavour, The Sherlock special The Abominable Bride, is out on New Year’s Day.

Source: Empire

I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.