Director Timur Bekmambetov has been put in charge of making the new Ben-Hur a reality, and now the new namesake has been cast in Jack Huston, a star of TV hit Boardwalk Empire, Geektyrant has reported. Huston is joining much loved Morgan Freeman, whose playing the classic older guide character Ildarin.
While a remake under any other name, the film is said to be taking more influence from the origin text Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ, the 1880 novel written by Lew Wallace rather than using the William Wyler 1959 classic as a blueprint. A brief description reads:
‘This version plays up the parallel storyline of Jesus Christ, but the focus is the blood feud between Judah Ben-Hur and Messala, who grew up best friends before the Roman Empire took control of Jerusalem. Judah Ben-Hur was a Jewish prince and Messala the son of a Roman tax collector. After the latter leaves to be educated in Rome for five years, the young man returns with a different attitude and mocks Judah and his religion. When a procession passes by Judah’s house and a roof tile accidentally falls and hits the governor, Messala betrays his childhood friend and manipulates the accident so that Judah is sold into slavery and certain death on a Roman warship, with his mother and sister thrown in prison for life. Judah vows revenge, culminating in the famed chariot races.‘
