Benedict Cumberbatch Will Play an Illusionist in Colin Trevorrow's WWII Drama WAR MAGICIAN

Director Colin Trevorrow (Jurrasic World) is set to direct Benedict Cumberbatch in an upcoming World War II drama titled War Magician.

The film is based on a book by David Fisher, and it tells the crazy story of Jasper Maskelyne, a British illusionist and his specially trained team who fought their part of the war with an amazing array of illusions. They used this magic to defeat Erwin Rommel in World War II. I guess Cumberbatch is getting very comfortable with the magical abilities he’s picked up while playing Doctor Strange.

Here’s the description of the story from the book:

Jasper Maskelyne was a world famous magician and illusionist in the 1930s. When war broke out, he volunteered his services to the British Army and was sent to Egypt where the desert war had just begun.

He used his skills to save the vital port of Alexandria from German bombers and to 'hide' the Suez Canal from them. He invented all sorts of camouflage methods to make trucks look like tanks and vice versa. On Malta he developed 'the world's first portable holes': fake bomb craters used to fool the Germans into thinking they had hit their targets.

His war culminated in the brilliant deception plan that won the Battle of El Alamein: the creation of an entire dummy army in the middle of the desert.

Trevorrow’s take on the story features “an international magic gang from Africa, Europe and the Middle East who conspired with Maskelyne and a female military intelligence officer to defeat the Nazis.”

This sounds like it will make for an incredibly fun WWII movie.

Source: Deadline