[ALUmnus]

Saw this. Could be very good, or very offensive to a lot of people. It will be interesting to see how they handle the story.

http://weblogs.variety.com/bfdealmemo/2 ... c-buy.html

For his first significant film project acquisition, Peter Chernin is taking on a project of Biblical proportions.

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.

Chernin will produce with Dylan Clark, who recently moved over from Universal to become president of Chernin’s Fox-based film company.

The script will be written by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, who make this their followup to a high-level deal they made to reinvent Herman Melville”s “Moby Dick,” with a graphic novel feel, for director Timur Bekmambetov and producer Scott Stuber at Universal. That script is in, the extensive pre-visualization work is done. It could be Bekmambetov's next film, if "Wanted 2" doesn't come together first.

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.

Chernin adds the project to several pre-existing Fox projects he has joined as producer, including the John D. MacDonald novel series adaptation “The Deep Blue Goodbye,” the Appian Way-produced drama that's a potential star vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio

Cooper & Collage, who wrote the comedy "Accepted" before creating this new track into tent-pole re-tellings of classics, also scripted the latest draft of “Tower Heist,” which Brett Ratner will direct for Universal and Imagine.

[Sly Fox]

I'm down as long as they don't screw up the story with literary license.

[RagingTireFire]

I'm down as long as they don't screw up the story with literary license.

You will not be down.

The fact that it's Timur Bekmambetov and he's trying to choose between this or "Wanted 2" should be a giant Soviet Mayday-sized red flag.

[rueful]

all i can picture is the time that Homer and Ned flanders designed the halftime show for the superbowl and the commercials on the show said " Only the super bowl can have a half time show of BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS"

[Innocent Bystander]

I'm down as long as they don't screw up the story with literary license.

You will not be down.

The fact that it's Timur Bekmambetov and he's trying to choose between this or "Wanted 2" should be a giant Soviet Mayday-sized red flag.

Mayday! Mayday!
What the heck is that?
Why, that's the Russian New Year. We can have a parade and serve hot hors d'oeuvres...