"WHO is playing Ben Hur?" Topic

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Never heard of him, but I have never seen Boardwalk Empire either. It's on my list of On Demand stuff to catch up on during long winter nights when I get caught up on painting.

I cannot see this movie being made today, even though the Charlton Heston one is a GOAT movie. Absolutely NO cgi!
I do not intend any political commentary here, but the whole notion of Jews in Israel/Palestine/Judea in this day and age can only lead to outraged frothing at the mouth by the usual suspects.

Amen.

Not sure if you watched Boardwalk Empire but he is the hit man that lost half his face in WW1. His character was great in Boardwalk Empire.

Maybe they could…then make a Richard Reid biopic, give it the full Braveheart treatment. Then, they're even-Steven.

I also wonder how a movie made in 2014 will handle Judah Ben Hur having his anger and rage purged by meeting Jesus?
Those days are past and passed.

Actually third remake. The first Ben Hur was a silent film.

It will definitely be a Him unless they just break the legs off the movie going PC and using a Her:)..
I'm game to meet Jesus any day, it would never be a bad thing, but that's just me
Cheers and yeah I'll give it a look see (most likely with my mom :) but true can't beat the original.

Cowards. De Mille remade his own picture. These guys are simply trying for another cash cow. "I have a great idea, let's remake Ben Hur, it got eleven Academy Awards last time!"

The changes will be significant, including the religious downplay, or I will be very surprised. The chariot racing and ship to ship combat scenes will be composed of the now indispensable "jiggly camera" method of cheap action sequencing. I expect it to flop….

Little known fact about the 1959 version; director William Wyler and actor Stephen Boyd conspired to include a homoerotic slant to the relationship between Judah and Messala. They decided it would make sense in terms of the close friendship the two had as young men and especially in the extreme bitterness Messala feels as a result of Judah's rejection. They kept this strictly between themselves and were especially careful to keep Heston in the dark. In the early scenes, watch the way Boyd looks at Heston, as well as his body language; it's pretty clear. FWIW, this isn't someone's wild imaginings but was admitted by Wyler and Boyd after the film was made. Heston never accepted it as true…

There was a TV remake in 2010 with a risible cross country chariot race, a badly cast Ray Winstone as Arrius but some excellent, slinky women.

I'd have no problem with a remake so long as it was done right. Of course, this is Hollywood. There is little chance of that happening.

In other news (another story from the same link)

Liam Neeson keen for Downton Abbey role

Gonna action it up are ya Liam?

the whole notion of Jews in Israel/Palestine/Judea in this day and age can only lead to outraged frothing at the mouth by the usual suspects.

My understanding is that it didn't go over well in 1948 either.

He was excellent in Boardwalk Empire.

There were other stories back in the day…..

Some films should not be re-made.

They will probably just write Jesus out of it altogether. Hey, it worked for Christmas!

Ironic, since Wallace's novel is titled "Ben Hur, a Tale of the Christ".
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It is nothing without the religious redemption. It will be "interesting" to see how Horrywood gets around it.

The article says that Morgan Freeman has been cast as the horse owner. Strange. One of the things that was pretty neat about the film was the friendship that developed between the Arab horse owner and the Jewish Ben Hur. Their common enemy was Rome, their conqueror. So how does a black man fit into that dynamic? Don't get me wrong, I love Freeman in almost everything else he's been in, except Costner's Robin Hood in which his character was also clearly and poorly contrived.

Well, if they used Nicholas Cage, Vin Diesel and the same style as the last Spartacus redux, there'd be a LeMans start where the charioteers would run to their racers fast and furiously after which they all would be gone in sixty seconds.
Just after 2 1/2 hours of sex and violence.

Freeman can be "Arabic" and a black man at the same time. There was plenty of intermarriage in the Middle East then and always has been….

During Roman times skin color had little of no effect. You could be a powerfull in rome even if you were black. They did not see race in skin color, that came later. Romans thought they were superiour to all but it was a cultur thing, not a race thing. Romans did not care about religion or skin color(except when the religion was seen as dangures(like early christianity)

And this was the same out side of rome to. Alot of ethitistry and race we think of today did not exict.

There was no Islam yet, so why would there be a "thing" that one man wes Jewish and one "arabic" the arabic, unlike what people thing, Jews would look arabic back them, most jews today are decended from europeans. And so look more european, back then, they would look like what palestinaians look like today.

There would be no diffrence between a jew and arab, except languge and religion. There would not be any inate hostilty between them.

The book is a peace of religious propaganda, the movie was ok for it's time, but the book and a new movie would be totaly out of place. except south of dixie.