The Book of Clarence: a lot of new actors, and a few new plot details
Benedict Cumberbatch, James McAvoy, David Oyelowo, and over a dozen other actors have joined the cast of Jeymes Samuel's biblical comedy... or drama... whatever it is.
Legendary Pictures has released some new details about The Book of Clarence, the biblical comedy… or drama… it’s not entirely clear what the tone of this film will be… that Jeymes Samuel is currently shooting in Italy as a follow-up to The Harder They Fall.
First, the film appears to be called The Book of Clarence again. Variety claimed two weeks ago that the film had been renamed Pins and Needles, but I see that they’ve changed the online version of their article since then.
Second, we have some actual details about the plot, at last: according to the press release, the film will tell “the tale of ‘Clarence,’ a down on his luck denizen of Jerusalem embarking on a misguided attempt to capitalize on the rise of celebrity and influence of the Messiah for his own personal gain — a journey that leads him on an exploration of the idea of faith and to a highly unexpected path of his own.”
Third, the press release is staying pretty mum about the tone of the film. Variety called it a “biblical comedy” two weeks ago, and Samuel called it “a full fun-filled extravaganza” seven months ago, and certainly the very notion of a guy named Clarence living in Bible times would seem to put the film in the same basic zone as, say, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. But the press release simply says says the film is “inspired by classic Hollywood epics set in biblical times”.
Fourth, the film will get a theatrical release from Sony Pictures, which announced a new multi-year partnership with Legendary Pictures just last week. And now I’m wondering if this is the sort of film that Sony might be able to promote through their “faith-based” Affirm label. I wouldn’t think so, but you never know. (Interestingly, the only other recent “biblical comedies” that I can think of were also Sony films: the Christmas cartoon The Star was an Affirm-branded film, but the PG-13 gross-out buddy movie Year One was most definitely not.)1
And finally, we have a long, long list of actors who have been cast in the film, though we don’t know who any of them are playing (except for the title character).
We already knew that these two actors would be in the film:
LaKeith Stanfield, who plays Clarence.
Now we have the names of another sixteen actors—at least two of whom have some Bible-movie credits under their belts already:
David Oyelowo (Selma, Queen of Katwe) has played the voice of Joseph in It’s a Boy! (2005), Joseph of Arimathea in The Passion (2008), and Cen in the sci-fi short film Rahab (2011), which starred his wife Jessica in the title role.
Nicholas Pinnock (Counterpart) played Arik in A.D. The Bible Continues (2015).
Two of the other actors have been in Bible-adjacent projects:
Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange, Star Trek into Darkness) plays Satan in Good Omens (2019-present), which has flashbacks to a few biblical incidents.
James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class, The Chronicles of Narnia) plays Lord Asriel, who is leading the war against God, in His Dark Materials (2019-2022).
And that’s it for biblical-genre experience, I think. The other new actors are:
Alfre Woodard (Star Trek: First Contact, 12 Years a Slave, Luke Cage).
Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies, Broadchurch).
RJ Cyler (Power Rangers, Black Lightning, The Harder They Fall). Incidentally, Cyler’s character in The Harder They Fall actually quotes “the Book of Clarence” at one point (“Like they say in the Book of Clarence, ‘No man out-speed me’”; one of his friends replies, “Out-speed ain’t a word, and Clarence ain’t no book”).
Anna Diop (Titans, Us, Nanny).
Micheal Ward (The A List, Top Boy, Empire of Light).
Caleb McLaughlin (Stranger Things, The Boys Presents: Diabolical).
Teyana Taylor (Coming 2 America, Entergalactic).
Babs Olusanmokun (Dune: Part One, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds).
Eric Kofi Abrefa (Harlots, Treadstone, BMF).
Chase Dillon (The Underground Railroad, The Harder They Fall).
Tom Glynn-Carney (Dunkirk, Tolkien, Domina, House of the Dragon).
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor (Love/Hate, Avengers: Infinity War, The Ipcress File).
And that about covers it. More details later, as they come.
Hail, Caesar! sort of straddles the line between biblical epics and comedy in a different way, as it is a comedy about the making of a biblical epic. It was released by Universal.