![]() ![]() The network launched an official website in which viewers could take a Houdini quiz, and began rolling out impressive online trailers and TV spots. HISTORY began promoting Houdini in late summer 2014. However, the music that would draw the most attention was the song "Simple Pleasures" by Jake Bugg that played over the first full trailer (included at the end of this post). ![]() Debney’s score would also be released on two limited edition CDs. Debney’s music would further the producers desire to give the series a contemporary feel to attract younger audiences. Oscar nominated composer John Debney was brought in to do the musical score. "This Houdini is more of a psychological thriller, so we used jump cutting, freeze frames, and contemporary sound and music to give an edginess to a classic story," explained Plisco. This would later prove controversial.įaced with a tight editing schedule, editor Sabrina Plisco expanded the editorial team to include co-editor David Beatty, and assistant editors Jared Zalman and Paul Alderman. broadcast, and a longer cut for international audiences. There the editors were faced with the challenge of creating two versions of the miniseries: a condensed version for U.S. Post production and editing took place at EPS-Cineworks in Studio City, California. While the original plan was to air the series in May, it was later pushed to the end of summer. Principal photography wrapped in mid-December, and Entertainment Weekly offered the first official look at Adrien Brody as Houdini in their Februissue. For fans, this was an indication that the miniseries would embrace popular Houdini mythology. Photos of actress Eszter Ónodi under a sheet of ice revealed the miniseries would include the fictional “trapped under the ice” drama so memorably depicted in the classic 1953 Tony Curtis Houdini movie. This was not an homage to the great magician rather, the decision to shoot in Budapest had to do with favorable tax incentives offered by Eastern Europe.ĭetails of the Houdini miniseries began to leak online even before production had wrapped. The entire production would be shot in Houdini’s birthplace of Budapest, Hungary. Other crew members included Patrizia von Brandenstein as production designer and Karl Walter Lindenlaub as cinematographer. Oscar nominee Uli Edel was hired to direct. Wishing to portray Bess as accurately as possible, Connolly did her own outside research, and even fought the producers on their original idea to make Bess Irish. On August 19, 2013, producers Lionsgate and A+E Studios (parent company of HISTORY) gave Houdini the greenlight to start production in the fall with Brody as Houdini and the talented Kristen Connolly as his wife Bess. Part One was to be called “Becoming Houdini” and Part Two was “Being Houdini.” However, this two title idea was eventually dropped. Meyer originally gave each installment a unique title. The Houdini miniseries would span two nights. However, Meyer’s final script would owe more to the uncredited 2006 biography, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero by William Kalush and Larry Slomon, than it would to his father’s work. Meyer agreed to do the job only if the producers optioned his father’s book, which they did. Meyer, wrote a psychoanalytic study of the great magician in 1976 called Houdini: A Mind in Chains. The writer had an interesting personal connection to Houdini. Unannounced at the time was that screenwriter Nicholas Meyer of Star Trek and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution fame had already penned the first drafts of the screenplay. This new Houdini promised to be a biopic that “traces the arc of the turn-of-the-20th-century master magician’s life from desperate poverty to worldwide fame.” Overseeing the project would be veteran TV producer Gerald W. Then on April 10, 2013, news broke that Oscar winner Adrien Brody had made a deal to star in a Houdini miniseries that would air on the HISTORY Channel. One thing they had in common: they were all highly fictionalized treatments of the great magician’s life. ABC even purchased an idea for a TV series in which Houdini’s ghost would work alongside a female detective in contemporary New York. Sony was developing a movie in which Houdini and Chung Ling Soo battled the super-natural. Summit Entertainment was working on a screenplay that featured Houdini as a super spy. In the spring of 2013, Hollywood had no less than a dozen Houdini projects in development. ![]()
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