Dreamworks Acquires Original Screenplay Featuring Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini

Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle and master magician Harry Houdini shared a friendship -- some might say an uneasy one, given Doyle's belief in Spiritualism and Houdini's vehement opposition to it -- during the 1920s. This real-life fact has been the inspiration for a number of fictional stories; see, for example, Gabriel Brownstein's 2005 suspense novel The Man from Beyond.

Now, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Dreamworks has purchased Voices from the Dead, an original screenplay from J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Jeremiah, numerous episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Jake and the Fatman) in which the two men work together with a psychic to solve a series of murders in 1920s New York City.