Newsbites: Animated Jesus! Sci-fi Job! DeMille novel! Gladiator 2! Vespasian! Cleo!

Some news items about films and TV shows with ancient and/or biblical elements

Anthony Hopkins as another Roman leader in Titus (1999).

Animated movie about Jesus in the works

A new, still-untitled animated movie about Jesus is in the works, and Cartoon Brew has a bit of exclusive concept art from the film. It’s not entirely clear to me who’s doing what on this film, but if I understand this correctly: the driving force behind the project is the Salvation Poem Project; the animation on the project is being guided by Pencilish Animation Studios, a crowdfunded indie outfit run by Tom Bancroft, a Disney and DreamWorks veteran who has also directed episodes of VeggieTales and Superbook; the development and storyboarding is being handled by Epipheo; and the powers that be are still looking for “a 2d animation studio” to do the actual animating. The film has a $20 million budget and is aiming for a theatrical release in 2025.

Sci-fi riff on the story of Job gets more actors

The Shift, billed two years ago as “a modern day, sci-fi story of faith that takes a lot of its cues from the Book of Job”, has started filming in Alabama and has announced some new additions to its cast, as Deadline reports that Yellowstone’s Neal McDonough and The Lord of the Rings’ Sean Astin have joined the film in undisclosed roles. Both actors have worked in the “faith-based” genre before: McDonough was in theatres just last week playing a shady financier in Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist, and Astin has starred in films like Moms’ Night Out and Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea. The Shift is produced by Angel Studios, the company behind The Chosen, and it also stars The Chosen’s Liz Tabish, Paras Patel, and Jordan Walker Ross.

A new novel set during the making of The Ten Commandments

Some Bible movies are so famous that people start telling stories about the making of those movies. Sixteen years ago, Dan Castellaneta—the voice of Homer Simpson—played Cecil B. DeMille in Sands of Oblivion, a horror movie in which the spirit of a vengeful Egyptian god lurks among the props from the 1923 version of The Ten Commandments in California. Now, Deadline has an article about the research that went into Peter Blauner’s Picture in the Sand, a new novel that is partly about a young movie buff who works on the 1956 version of The Ten Commandments in Egypt.

Gladiator sequel coming late next year

Variety reports that a sequel to Gladiator—the Best Picture Oscar winner for 2000, and the film that did more than any other to revive the ancient-epic genre—is coming to theatres November 22, 2024. Most of the adult male characters in the original movie were dead by the end of that film, so the sequel will take place years later when Lucius—the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and the nephew of the emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix)—has grown up. It’s not clear to me that the real Lucius lived to be an adult, and it’s worth noting that the death of Commodus marked the end of his dynasty and was followed by several months of turbulence known as ‘The Year of the Five Emperors’, so it’s not clear to me where the story could go from there, but anyhoo. Paul Mescal, currently Oscar-nominated for his role in Aftersun, is in talks to play Lucius, and Ridley Scott will direct the film, which would make this the first time he has directed a sequel to one of his own movies outside of the Alien franchise. (He also directed Hannibal, the sequel to Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs.)

Anthony Hopkins to play Vespasian in a gladiator series

Variety reports that Anthony Hopkins is going to play the emperor Vespasian in Those About to Die, a gladiator series written by Saving Private Ryan’s Robert Rodat and produced and directed by Roland Emmerich, a filmmaker best-known for his disaster movies (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, etc.). Maybe the series will find some way to get into the fact that Vespasian died a few months before Mt Vesuvius erupted in AD 79? Incidentally, Vespasian died at the age of 69, and Hopkins is currently 85. I think Hopkins’ only previous forays into the Roman era onscreen were in 1981’s Peter and Paul, as Paul, and in 1999’s Titus, as Titus Andronicus.

Cleopatra dramedy in the works

Deadline reports that Jessica Runck (Man with a Plan) and Jennie Snyder Urman (Jane the Virgin) are developing a dramatic comedy about Cleopatra called Cleo. It will reportedly portray Cleopatra as “an overqualified young woman who is forced to hide her intelligence behind make-up, clothes and men to earn the respect she needs to hang on to her job: being queen of Egypt.” The series will stream on Peacock, a streaming service that evidently has ancient history on the brain; they are also the ones behind Those About to Die. Come to think of it, Peacock is also owned by NBCUniversal, and Universal Pictures was reportedly interested in making a feature film about Cleopatra with Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot a few months ago.