More on Aronofsky's Noah

Darren Aronofsky has been taking advantage of the publicity he's been getting from Black Swan, so there have been a couple of articles recently about his plans to make a new version of the story of Noah (see my previous posts). Last week SlashFilm confirmed that not only has Aronofsky decided to make a comic book as a step to filming Noah, but also that there is also some footage on YouTube (though it says it is "private").

Movieweb are carrying a piece called "Noah Is Dirty and Not PG Says Darren Aronofsky". I couldn't get the actual page to work, but Google has it in its cache. Their article says that the project will actually be a mini-series and that it will be sci-fi adaptation of the graphic novel. Interestingly it also cites the 1976 Sunn Pictures documentary In Search of Noah's Ark as a source of inspiration, one that I've never seen, but that I know Peter Chattaway has fond memories of.

Derrickson to film Goliath

Both the Hollywood Reporter and deadline.com have the story that director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) is to make Goliath, about the death of the Biblical giant.

Ryan Kavanaugh of Relativity Media is teaming up with Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen of Temple Hill to produce the film. Godfrey and Bowen previously worked together on the 2006 telling of The Nativity Story. The script has been written by John D. Payne and Patrick McKay. The Hollywood Reporter article says that the new film will be aiming to have "a modern vibe that harkens to the spirit of films such as 300 and The Bourne Identity. That makes it the second such film in production to aspire to be like the 2007 comic book-esque epic, the other being Fox's Moses movie.

The deadline.com article features a brief synopsis:

When the fierce warrior Goliath is sent to track down the foretold king of the Israelites, the young shepherd David gets thrust into an epic chase and adventure fighting for his own life, and his loved ones, in a battle between the young man and the giant.

That sounds a little different from the biblical account, so it will be interesting to see how this ends up.

I'm also interested to see what the film does with the fact that the more reliable Hebrew Bible manuscripts describe Goliath as about 6'6" rather than the more famous 9'6". I can't imagine, particularly given the citation of 300 above, that this is something the film will be looking to incorporate (although it would make casting a lot easier). Not only would it upset some Christians, but it will also be derided by those outside of the church, particularly those whose knowledge about Goliath only extends to knowing that he was a giant. That said, some kind of nod in that direction would be fun.

Trailer for BBC1's The Nativity

Mark Goodacre has the news that a trailer for BBC1's The Nativity has gone online at YouTube. The trailer is definitely going for that traditional family feel, and Jordan's soap-operaexpertise is very much to the fore in the snippets of the confrontation between Mary and Joseph. I have to say I really like what I've seen of the annunciation. The Angel Gabriel is really quite unremarkable and naturalistic, which should prevent the programme dating as others that have gone for a more supernatural angle have in the past. This even makes Pasolini's young girl look a little showy. It will be interesting to see whether that opens the door for any of the characters, not to mention the audience, to view this event sceptically.

There's also a piece on this in print edition of the Christmas Edition of The Radio Times with a brief capsule review of each episode available online.

Jim Davila has linked to an article on the programme in yesterday's The Independent. It's by Gerard Gilbert, who was actually an extra in The Jesus Film (1979), and he goes on to discuss a few of the well-known Jesus films, including this witty line on The Passion of the Christ: "At least the actors spoke in subtitled Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, so we didn't have to listen to English being turned into a dead language, as it is in most Jesus films."

Lastly, there a small website on the film courtesy of the Church Media Network.

The Nativity: Broadcasting Dates

Mark Goodacre has the news that Red Planet's website finally has the broadcasting times and dates for the BBC's The Nativity. The four episodes will be screened on BBC1 from Monday 20th to Thursday 23rd December 2010, starting at 7pm. Each episode will be half an hour.

There doesn't seem to be anything new on the BBC's website. Even the Christmas highlights page on the Religion homepage doesn't mention it.

I did come across an article by Peter Graystone of the Church Army who saw the film at a press preview screening in October. He talks about some of the details of the programme, and is incredibly positive about it. Here's a quicjk excerpt:

It is not just moving, it is funny (very), believable (totally), sexy (yes!), tense and profoundly full of the grace of God. And the awe of God too - the writer Tony Jordan has worked a miracle.

I'm hoping to get in touch with someone regarding this film soon, but I've barely had a chance over the last fortnight to try and contact the relevant person.

More on The Nativity (BBC)

The BBC have just released their press pack for next month's The Nativity. There are still no dates for the broadcasts, although in the interview for the press pack writer Tony Jordan says it will play in prime time the week before Christmas. There are also interviews with Tatiana Maslany (Mary) and Andrew Buchan (Joseph), as well as Al Weaver who plays Thomas the Shepherd.

I've written a piece previewing this production for rejesus.co.uk and there was a brief mention of it in Monday's Daily Telegraph. Christianity.org.uk has a couple of extra photos, including one of Peter Capaldi.

Warner Bros. to Make Moses

Over at Arts and Faith, Peter Chattaway has linked to news from NYmag.com about two new Moses films in production by major studios. I reported on Fox's plans for a 300-style Moses film last year, and the NYmag piece doesn't really add much to what was known then.

However, the Warner Bros. project, is something that neither Peter nor I had heard of before, and seems to have a reasonably strong team behind it. Dan Lin (The Departed) and Matti Leshem are going to be producing the movie and British screenwriter Stuart Hazeldine and US writer Michael Green (Heroes) are said to be supplying the script any minute now.

There are a few more articles on this story available via this IMDb page, but I doubt any of them beat NYmag's headline. First-class pun-ditry.

Bollywood Jesus Film Due in 2011

According to The Guardian Bollywood star Pawan Kalyan is set to play Jesus in a new film to be shot on location in Israel/Palestine. "A $30m (£20m) production involving an all-Indian cast of mainly children will begin shooting on location in the Holy Land in October and is scheduled for release next year." The film has not yet been given a title and the script is still in production but it will apparently cover the Jesus story from his birth to his crucifixion. That suggests that there will be no resurrection, but time will tell. However The Globe and The Mail's piece on this suggests the story's focus will be on Jesus' childhood. Variety has also reported the story. (Thanks to Peter Chattaway for those two).

This brings two other films to mind. The first is another Indian Jesus film Dayasagar (also known as Daya Sagar, Oceans of Mercy, Karunamoorthy, Karunamayudu) which includes the resurrection (and ascension) as well as Jesus' birth and his childhood. The other is The Aquarian Gospel, another Indian film that was intending to focus on the period of Jesus' life that is not covered by the gospels. I've not heard anything on that film since 2008.

According to the new movie's director, Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, this latest production will be 195 minutes long, featuring seven songs, in four languages (including English). At $30m it will be one of the most expensive Bollywood films ever made.

A New Modernisation of the Jesus Story: In Our Time

I got an email a week or two back from the producers of In Our Time - a contemporary version of the story of Jesus. It's due to be released in December 2010 and will be distributed by Lions Gate Films.

There's a handful of details about the film available in the latest press release and it also has a facebook page. There's also the beginnings of an official website with a good deal of information including plot synopsis, production locations and cast biographies.

DJ Perry (pictured above in last year's Book of Ruth) will be heading up the cast as Jesus, and the actors starring in most of the main parts have been named, although only Matthew has been named amongst the apostles. There also seems to be a chance that Jon Voight and/or Richard Dreyfuss will have cameos. Richard N. Bailey has written the screenplay.

According to the press release, the story is narrated by Mary which will make for an interesting comparison with Jezile (Son of Man) another modernised take on the story of Jesus (albeit set in South Africa) which places Mary very much towards the film's centre.

Various New Jesus Film Projects

Been a bit busy of late, so not had time to link to Peter Chattaway's latest round up of Jesus films news.

One of the films Peter discusses at length is Bruce Marchiano's Jesus ... No Greater Love. The news is that Marchiano is releasing a 15th Anniversary Edition of The Gospel According to Matthew. The film has been repackaged and "coupled it with a first-ever, two CD audio re-issue of 'In the Footsteps of Jesus'". Profits from the sale will go towards funding Marchiano's Jesus ... No Greater Love which seems to be the new name for the film that was being called the Gospel of John. Incidentally, can anyone else think of any other films that have an ellipsis in the title. I can think of one other and it's a sort of Bible film, but not many others are springing to mind.

Other news is that both Jesus and Esther from The Bible Collection have been re-released; that Not the Messiah (Python Oratorio based on Life of Brian) has been given an MPAA rating, suggesting it may get an video release in addition to it's current limited cinema release (which comes to Leicester on 25th March); that Mark Millar has failed to find a studio to make American Jesus; and that there are a couple of animated Nativity films at different stages of pre-production, The Fourth Wise Man and an Egnlish language version of the Spanish film Holy Night!.

This reminds me, speaking of animated Jesus films, I don't think I ever blogged another story from Peter about At Jesus' Side (trailer), a film about four dogs who witness Jesus' death and resurrection. It's being released on March 16th, and looks pretty darn awful. I've not been sent a review copy though so I guess I'll never really know for sure. They have a blog as well for anyone who wants to find out more.

Incidentally, seeing as I'm speaking about FilmChat today I'd like to link to this post of his which starts off being about Avatar but actually ends up being interesting. Peter's point is that in (western filmed) battle scenes you nearly always find the side you sympathise with coming from the left. This has affected the way I have watched various battle scenes since then including one from Channel 4's 1066 where the French come from the left despite the largely pro-Saxon stance the film adopts throughout. Food for thought.

Coming Soon, Genesis in 3D

This just in from Jeffrey Overstreet: Paramount Pictures and Walden co-founder Cary Granat are making a 3D version of the creation story. In The Beginning will "will use 3-D visuals to transform the oft-told tale into a spectacle that the filmmakers hope will attract family and faith-based audiences". Granat was behind Walden's The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe which has been greeted with a mixed response amongst Christian film critics.

The story, and the quotation above, originate in an exclusive at Deadline New York, but if it's true, it will be interesting to see how the film compares with the animated 3D Noah film that is also rumoured to be in production. THe race for the first 3D Bible film is very much on.

Granat apparently "pitched the film by claiming that the Adam And Eve story has never really been told by a feature film" which is odd given that the title of his film seems to be a nod towards John Huston's epic The Bible: In the Beginning. Still given the occasionally lackadaisical approach to C.S. Lewis' tome, I can't say I'm greatly surprised. That said, it's hard to imagine any Bible film getting the budget to film in 3D without having to make it family friendly and tone down the Christianity a bit. Quite how you do that with Genesis, I'm not entirely sure.

Resurrection Comes Back to Life

See what I did there? It's been three years since I heard anything about the supposed sequel to The Passion of the Christ, Resurrection. There were so many people claiming to be making films in that period after The Passion but few seemed to have survived the credit crunch. However, according to Variety, Resurrection may be one of them

The first thing to note is that the film now has the longer title of The Resurrection of the Christ - which, I guess, will reinforce it's claim to be the sequel to Gibson's massive hit. Having said that this may not be anything to do with the film I discussed the day after my daughter was born (who is sitting beside me now chatting away). That film had Sony behind it, and none of the names seem to match those connected with this latest release.

According to Varirty, Indie producer Bill McKay will start the 10-week shoot in July in Israel, Morocco and Europe. Surprisingly much of the $20 million production costs have come from the UK. Also involved are writer Dan Gordan (The Hurricane), director Jonas McCord and executive producer J. David Williams. Willioams was behind the relatively successful The Omega Code back in 1999. The plan is for an Easter 2011 release, with Samuel Goldwyn Films.

There's one particular part of the Variety piece that got me thinking. The film will apparently have:

a focus on the power, greed and ambition of those involved in the crucifixion -- Pontius Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas and Judas. "It's as much about the key players as it is about Jesus," McKay said. "We want to bring in the 'Gladiator' dimension of the first century against the political milieu of the time."

McKay asserts that "Resurrection" will remain faithful to Biblical and historical records.

As Peter Chattaway there's a more than a suggestion that the film is going to look at the crucifixion as well as the resurrection which is interesting given that this is meant to be the sequel to a film which has already looked at this part of the story in great detail. It's possible that the filmmakers feel they have to stretch the source material to cover a full-length movie script. That said, in Matthew's Gospel, Pilate and Caiaphas feature after the empty tomb is discussed, but Herod doesn't and Judas is supposedly dead by this point, so it looks like some kind of backstory will feature here.

Interestingly, the claim that the film "will remain faithful to Biblical and historical records" (emphasis mine) also points in this direction because, aside from the existence of the church, the only real historical evidence we have about the resurrection is Biblical. And note how it says "faithful to" rather than anything more specific. I guess this reflects that there are some minor contradictions between the resurrection accounts (numbers of women and shining men for example) which could be labouriously harmonised into one account but will probably just result in one account being preferred over another.

El Discipulo - Jesus as a Zealot

Many thanks to George for not only tipping me off about this one, but also sending me a reminder.

El Discípulo (The Disciple) is a new Jesus film from Spanish film director (and founder of Ircania Productions) Emilio Ruiz Barrachina which will portray Jesus as a zealot. The project debuted at the Malaga Film Festival last April. Antonio Piñero, Professor of New Testament Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid has acted as one of the film's consultants and Joel West is playing Jesus.

The film's website includes the following synopsis:

In his childhood Jesus witnesses the death of his father Joseph in a confrontation with Romans military troups. Years later, he becomes the favorite disciple of John the baptist, leader of a group of Macabee that anounces the arrival of the kingdom of heaven, in which the Romans would be expelled.

When John the baptist is beheaded, Jesus reorganizes the group in order to assault Jerusalem's temple. Following the same facts depicted in the gospels, they will be portrayed in a very different way. This project is based upon the latest studies and will set the story in a feaseble historic context.

Like many Jesus films, Barrachina wanted to portray Jesus from a historical perspective, but he apparently leaves aside the religious dimension of his life depicting Jesus as part of the zealot movement.

The website also includes a list of cast and crew, a selection of movie stills, details of an accompanying documentary Jesus 2.0. There's also a "research line refined by remarkable experts" which gives an extended introduction to the film and claims that more than 300 experts since 1768 have supported such an idea.

Rising India to Fund Noah's Ark

There are so many films about Noah rumoured to be on the way that news about any one of them sends me scurrying thorugh my previous posts on Noah films to try and work out which is the one that is being discusses. Anyway, the latest ark story to emerge on the pages of Variety concerns the Bob Funk / Unified pictures film Noah's Ark. The story simply says that US based company Rising India will be funding it to the tune of $40 million. Whether this is on top of or instead of previous financiers remains to be seen. In the current financial climate though it's encouraging to see companies still financing these movies as I suspect that many of the films I have previously mentioned as being in production will never get made as a result of it.

Here's the latest list anyway:

Not the End of the World - Illuminated Films

Unnamed Noah Film - Darren Aronofsky

Sold Out! - Uri Paster

Aardvark Art's Ark - Warner Bros. / Casey Affleck (above)

The Flood - Promenade Pictures' sequel to The Ten Commandments (2007)

Rock the Boat - French animation (Gaumont)

Noah's Ark - Unified Pictures / Bob Funk

El Arca - Patagonik (Argentina)

The Missing Lynx - Kandor Graphics

Thanks to Peter Chattway for the latest addition.

Fox to Make 300-Style Moses Movie

Both Empire and Variety are reporting that Fox are planning to make a new film about Moses in the style of 2007's 300. The new film will be produced by Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark from Adam Cooper and Bill Collage's script. There's no definite news on who the director will be but the current favourite is Timur Bekmambetov who is working on a similarly styled film version of "Moby Dick".

Here's a little bit more from Variety:

20th Century Fox has made a preemptive acquisition of a pitch to tell the story of Moses in "300" style. The tale will start with his near death as an infant to his adoption into the Egyptian royal family, his defiance of the Pharoah and deliverance of the Hebrews from enslavement.

[snip]

The Moses story will be told using the same green screen strategy as "300," so it will feel more like that pic or "Braveheart" than "The Ten Commandments,” the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film.

The popular mythical and magical elements inherent in the Book of Exodus will be there--including the plagues visited upon Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea--but the Cooper & Collage version will also include new elements of Moses’ life that the writers culled from Rabbinical Midrash and other historical sources.

That last line is imilar to the kind of thing Cecil B. DeMille said about his second version of The Ten Commandments. In reality, though, his film contained relatively little midrashic material and mainly used modern novelisations of the Moses story.

I'm not sure I'm hugely optimistic about this film. Whilst I appreciated the style of Sin City and 300, I also found both films to be depressingly misogynistic. I'm not sure I'm too keen for a hyper-violent misogynistic take on a patriarchal story, even if it also looks fantastic. But who knows, perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Mary News on Cast and DirectorFoley Returns to (the) Madonna

Foley directing Dustin Hoffman in Confidence, © Lionsgate

The Hollywood Reporter has more details on Mary, Mother of the Christ. Joining Al Pacino (Herod), Camilla Belle (Mary) and Peter O'Toole (Symeon) will be Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado (Joseph) and Julia Ormond. It also names James Foley (pictured above) as director. Foley has a number of well known films behind him including Madonna vehicle Who's That Girl? and the excellent Glengarry Glen Ross. Filming is due to start in October.

Thanks to Peter Chattaway for the tip off. Whilst I'm talking about Mr Chattaway, I should also congratulate him for winning the award for Best Column of 2008 at the Fellowship of Christian Newspapers (North America) - for his film column for BC Christian News.

Lion of Judah-Another CGI Bible Film

2007's animated version of The Ten Commandments may have been something of a first, but it was only a matter of time before computer animated Bible films were popping up all over the place. FilmChat has news of another - the first CGI film to be made in South Africa in fact - Lion of Judah.

In comparison to The Ten Commandments it's taken on a somewhat easier task. That film was widely criticised for what was perceived to be substandard CGI. It's far more difficult to animate humans well with CGI than it is to animate animals (for example it wasn't until The Incredibles that Pixar used animated humans as the lead characters). So it's a wise move by the makers of Lion of Judah to focus on a story about a group of farm animals and the titular lion instead.

Unusually, that's just about as much information about the film's plot as there is on its official website. There may be a trailer, a guide to the characters, screensavers to download and a few other bits and pieces, but there's no mention of the fact that this is a film about the Easter story. At least, that's what the IMDb says. Indeed even articles in Variety and Cartoon Brew seem to skirt the issue.It looks like the film is trying to promote itself purely as a goofy animated movie with loveable animal characters, citing the odd known actor (Ernest Borgnine, Michael Madsen) along the way to appeal to the adults. I can see why that makes good marketing, although it may be that the publicists reveal more about the film's plot as we near the release date.

The one point that will interest Jesus film fans though will be the news that Bruce Marchiano of the Visual Bible's Matthew and Acts will be reprising the role of Jesus. Marchiano is, of course, still trying to raise funding to make his own word for word version of the Gospel of John. The Visual Bible films were filmed in South Africa by the South African director Regardt van den Bergh so I can't help wondering if there is a connection there somewhere.

Is There a Remake of Jesus Christ, Superstar in the Works?

The Hollywood Reporter says so.

Universal sang from the mountaintops after the $600 million global success of the Abba musical "Mama Mia" last year. Now the studio could be belting them out about a very different figure: Jesus.

The studio and producer Marc Platt are in active development on a remake of "Jesus Christ Superstar." And there's a director -- at first surprising, but not without its logic -- that Platt and the studio have been talking to: Marc Webb.

If this project really does come to fruition with Universal it will be the first Jesus film to be made by a major studio since Universal's Last Temptation of Christ over 20 years ago.

Of course Jesus Christ, Superstar has been updated more recently than that. There was a fairly awful filmed version of the stage production made at the time of the millennium. If potential director Marc Webb does make a noughties hipster update of the musical hopefully he'll steer well clear of that version of the story with its pouting Jesus and its Nazi-style Pontius Pilate.

Thanks to Peter Chattaway for the tip off.

Release Date for The God Complex

Almost a year ago to the day I talked about a comic indie film about the Bible called The God Complex, and shortly afterwards interviewed director Mark Pirro.

Well the film is now set to première on the 29th August, and there's quite a bit more new about the production on the news section of the official website. Elsewhere on the site, there's also a couple of trailers and a host of photos. When I checked the site last week, there were some comments about Year One a subject which Pirro and I talked about last year, but, for now, they seem to have been taken down. Hopefully I'll be able to review the film which appears to be the most comprehensive sweep of stories from the Bible yet covered in a single film.

Noah's Ark Goes 3D

There are numerous films about Noah rumoured to be in production, though I suspect not many of them will make it through the credit crunch. One of the more likely looking contenders is the prequel to 2007's animated The Ten Commandments, part of the Epic Stories of the Bible series from Promenade Pictures.

Anyway, Variety has just announced that the film will be a "stereoscopic 3-D toon" to be made by Magic Lantern. Thanks to Peter Chattaway for that piece of news. No news on a release date on this on any of these sites. Last year Promenade CEO Cindy Bond announced that it would be Easter 2009 (!) so things have obviously been somewhat delayed.

Casting and Blog for Ben Hur

Filming for the Ben Hur mini-series started last week in Ouarzazete, Morocco, utilising the museum there for the interior scenes of the Governor's Palace.

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed the names of the pricipal actors involved in the production. Joseph Morgan (Master and Commander takes the title role, opposite Stephen Campbell Moore as Messala. The film's biggest name looks to be Ray Winstone who plays the Roman who adopts him, Quintus Arrius. The cast will also include Emily VanCamp (Esther), Kristen Kruek (Judah's sister Tirzah), Hugh Bonneville (Pontius Pilate), Alex Kingston, Lucia Jimenez, Miguel Angel Munoz, Marc Warren, Art Malik and James Faulkner (Marcellus).

The producer of the series, Simon Vaughan, has started a blog charting the progress of filming, and there are already a good number of on set photos of the cast and crew, including the above of Morgan and director Steven Shill.