It was only a matter of time before I had to type that sentence.
Timur Bekmambetov has reportedly been chosen by MGM to helm their new version of Ben-Hur, in which Charlton Heston rode around on a chariot and… and… OK, so you can tell that I’ve never actually watched Ben-Hur. I might do that tonight. I have no interest in watching the Emmys when only one show I like got any nominations. I’m sure host Neil Patrick Harris is going to bring it, but that’s what YouTube is for.
Anyway. MGM’s new Ben-Hur is less a straight remake of the 1959 classic, itself a remake of a 1925 silent film, than a new adaptation of Lew Wallace‘s book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It’s the same tack the Coen brothers took for 2010’s True Grit… but the Cohen brothers are amazing, Oscar-winning filmmakers, and Timur Bekmambetov… isn’t. It’s not been confirmed by MGM that he’s directing, but Deadline does report that he and the studio have “closed their deal.”
Between Ridley Scott‘s Sigourney Weaver co-starring Moses movie, the History Channel’s Bible miniseries, and Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah’s ark movie, Biblical epics are looking, in the words of Zoolander‘s Mugatu, so hot right now. Meh. I’ll just take the “The Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen… ten! Ten commandments!” scene from A History of the World: Part 1 and leave it at that.
(via: Collider)
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