What’s that, Warner Bros? You’re looking for big money makers after the world of HARRY POTTER has been tapped in full? And you’ve decided to tap the completely opposite end of the spectrum and fill up your dance card with projects based on the Bible? Fair eough.
PONTIUS PILATE is the newest acquisition by Warner Bros, following in the epic and sand-filled footsteps of Mel Gibson’s MACCABEES project and Steven Spielberg’s Moses project GODS AND KINGS. Directors are already being spoken to in regards to helming PONTIUS PILATE, a story meant to track “Lucius Pontius Pilate from the sensitive son of a Roman Knight into a ferocious soldier whose warrior exploits make him a general and puts him on a political track under the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Promised a military governorship in Egypt, Pilate is instead assigned by Tiberius to become the prefect of Judea, at a time when Jerusalem was a cauldron of religious tensions between various factions of the Jewish faith… All of this puts him in a desperate situation and in need of public approval when he is asked to decide the fate of a 33-year old rabbi accused by religious elders of claiming he is King of the Jews. Along the way, such Roman emperors including Caligula and Tiberius and New Testament figures like John the Baptist, Salome and Mary Magdalene are seen in a tale that culminates with Pilate’s fateful decision to allow Jesus Christ to be crucified.”
The script by Vera Blasi (WOMAN ON TOP, TORTILLA SOUP) is described as having “the twists and unexpected turns that satisfyingly combine history, political maneuvering and storytelling inventions” seen in fellow historical pieces such as GLADIATOR and BRAVEHEART, and is (in the words of the author) “80% fact and the rest dramatic license.” Blasi also currently has EMPEROR in the can, a movie starring Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones that concerns a general tasked with discerning whether Japanese Emperor Hirohito should be hanged as a war criminal at the close of World War II.
So Schmoes – are you starting to get sick of all the Bible-related business in the works despite none of the movies having come out yet, or are they different enough that you don’t mind?
Running a sexy Pontius Pilate picture seemed in poor taste, so I have beautiful art for you instead.