Morgan Freeman Cast in New BEN-HUR Film
The first official casting announcement has been made by Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov for MGM's Ben-Hur. He has cast Morgan Freeman in the role of Ildarin, "the man who teaches the slave Ben-Hur to become a champion caliber chariot racer." Freeman will be awesome in the film. Why wouldn't he be? The actor is great in everything he's in.
The studio and director are still looking to cast the main character in the story, Judah Ben-Hur, and his friend turned rival Messala. A few weeks ago it was reported that Tom Hiddleston was wanted for the lead role, but there's no word on whether that is still the case.
The film will be based on the 1880 Lew Wallace novel Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ, and according to Deadline,
"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."
I'm really curious to see what Bekmambetov's vision for this movie is going to look like. I'm a big fan of the original 1959 film, but an updated version could be cool. We'll just have to wait and see.