Well, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Brothers had obtained the rights to the nearly 80-year-old character of Mandrake the Magician and is teaming up with a production company named Atlas Productions to produce it. Of course, this does have to be taken with a certain level of skepticism: just the act of obtaining the rights and announcing that a movie is in the works has happened so many times in the past, to just about every possible property available. Its all part of the high-stakes money game that is Hollywood. In fact, even the Mandrake property has been through the potential production cycle a few times itself.
The article goes on to name some names that I don’t recognize but must be known to the Hollywood insider target audience. According to the article, the producers want to give Mandrake a “21st Century makeover” as what happened to the most recent Sherlock Holmes movies, but I would more prefer an actual updating of the property to not only bring it actually into the present day but also get rid of the early racial stereotyping embedded in the stories.
I for one would be very interested in seeing what might come of this, if it actually makes it to the big screen. That being said, I would hope it would be done by people who respect the original source and the concepts within it.