With Catching Fire off his plate, Hunger Games director Gary Ross has moved on to Summit Entertainment's Houdini project.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ross is currently in negotiations to adapt The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, based on the controversial biography by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. The book, which was published by Atria Books in 2006, insinuated that the escape artist Harry Houdini was in fact a secret service agent for Britain and America. The studio picked up the movie rights back in 2009 with the aim of creating an action thriller depicting Houdini as part Indiana Jones and part Sherlock Holmes.
Ross sent shock waves through the industry when he opted out of directing the upcoming Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire. Now that project will go to Francis Lawrence, who is coincidentally attached to his own Houdini pic at Columbia.