So Bible movies are a thing again we guess. Next spring, Darren Aronofsky goes to the cinematic pulpit with “Noah,” and it seems to have kickstarted a frenzy for studios to bring God to big screen, because before the year is out, Ridley Scott will go all Old Testament with “Exodus.” With shooting slated to begin soon he’s beginning to put the pieces together with his cast. This past spring, Christian Bale was courted and it seems he’s still on board, and now he’s got a co-star.
Joel Edgerton is now adding Ridley Scott to the list of acclaimed directors he’s worked with — John Hillcoat, Baz Luhrmann, Kathryn Bigelow — coming on board “Exodus” to play the ancient Pharoah Ramses. It’s not clear how big the scope of the film— penned by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, with a rewrite from Steve Zaillian — will be, but it’s clear that the Moses/Ramses relationship is a key one for the director. “What’s interesting to me about Moses isn’t the big stuff that everybody knows. It’s things like his relationship with Ramses [II, the pharaoh]. I honestly wasn’t paying attention in school when I was told the story of Moses. Some of the details of his life are extraordinary,” Scott said about the movie last year.
The general story goes that the two lived as brothers until Ramses learned that Moses was a Jew, and of course, the latter wasn’t hesitant about fighting for his people. Let my people go, and whatnot.
Anyway, the picture will start shooting in September and undoubtedly more big names are in the works. And we’ll see how it all turns out when the movie arrives on December 12, 2014. [THR]