Barry Sonnenfeld to Direct Film About Famous Hoax

"What I came up with for her was Babs of Newtonia, and she said: 'That won't work. It'll sound like I'm supporting Newt Gingrich.' So we had to take the word 'Newt' out."

The deception, orchestrated by James "The Amazing" Randi, is also explored in the new documentary 'An Honest Liar.'

Barry Sonnenfeld has signed on to direct a film based on James "The Amazing" Randi’s Project Alpha, a real-life hoax that is explored in the documentary feature An Honest Liar.

Directed by Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom, An Honest Liar, a documentary about Randi’s life, opened in exclusive engagements in New York and Los Angeles on March 6.

Project Alpha was a hoax orchestrated by Randi and two fake psychics, Steve Shaw (now known as Banachek) and Michael Edwards. Banachek and Edwards participated in a paranormal research project led by researchers who believed that the pair had legitimate psychic powers and had no idea that they were being duped. The project, which began in 1979, lasted over two years until the hoax was revealed publicly in Discover magazine.

Sonnenfeld, who is repped by WME and Mosaic and who is next set to direct Nine Lives, starring Kevin Spacey, said, “Not only did I love An Honest Liar, but I knew there was an excellent narrative film to be made out of this story, with James Randi playing the ‘behind the curtain’ puppeteer.” Measom and Weinstein will serve as producers on the new project.

An Honest Liar is being distributed by Richard Abramowitz’s Abramorama.