King Features Comic Strip Characters move to the big screen

Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom are ready for their close-ups. Recently, Hyde Park Entertainment and Crusader Entertainment teamed up to acquire the rights to King Features classic fantasy strips “Mandrake the Magician” and “The Phantom.” Ashok Armitraj, Chairman and CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment, has teamed with Howard Baldwin, President and CEO of Crusader Entertainment, to co-finance and co-produce two live-action, contemporized versions of both of Lee Falk’s comic heroes. Rick Karo, who represented King Features in the deal, will produce both films with Baldwin and Armitraj, who while growing up, both cited these classic comic strips as among their favorites. The companies have tapped the writing team of Tom Donnelly and Josh Oppenheimer (“A Sound of Thunder”) to adapt the “Mandrake” script, while “The Phantom” project will be scripted by Steven De Souza (“Die Hard” and “48 Hours”). “Mandrake the Magician” was created by Lee Falk in 1934. This long-running comic strip is currently distributed to more than 200 newspapers worlwide. The strip follows the crime-fighting adventures of Mandrake, his partner Lothar and his girlfriend Princess Narda. Details about this feature’s first installment is being kept under wraps, but the project will follow the magician from the United States to Europe and South America in a “big-canvas adventure story.” According to Baldwin, “Mandrake is a great, franchisable character. He is a crime fighter, not unlike Batman or Spider-Man, but this guy’s power lies within his ability to do magic. That’s the fun of this piece.” Armitraj added, “It conjures up a lot of images and is a wonderful piece of material. If we can update it well and put an extreme spin on it, which we would like to do, it becomes a fascinating character.” Armitraj also aspires to revive “The Phantom” in very much the same way. While growing up in India, Armitraj got his daily dose of The Phantom’s adventures. “The fact is this character is terrific and has been followed by people around the world,” said Armitraj. “There is a great history there, the whole legend of The Phantom — how it was handed down four centuries with the vow to take on piracy and bad guys. The major thing is to put him in a contemporary setting with the weapons and gizmos and ‘Matrix’-style stuff.” About King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate is one of the largest and most experienced organizations in licensing. Among its most beloved and successful classic characters are “Betty Boop” and “Popeye.” In recent years, King Features has diversified and now represents properties such as “Howdy Doody” from the popular 1950’s television show and “Cow Parade”, the publicly displayed life-size cows.