Ben Hur Rides Again - New TV Series

[Narukami]

New Mini Series Slated for 2010

This From the Hollywood Reporter...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090504/tv_ ... RytP9xFb8C

[size=150:2lr31ovl]"Ben Hur" chariot filling up[/size]

By Borys Kit and Nellie Andreeva – Sun May 3, 11:44 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Joseph Morgan, Emily VanCamp and Stephen Campbell Moore will star in "Ben-Hur," a four-hour miniseries set to air on ABC in 2010.

Steven Shill, helmer of surprise box-office hit "Obsessed," is directing the adaptation of the 1880 Lew Wallace novel from a script by Alan Sharp ("Rob Roy").

Morgan will play the title role, immortalized by Charlton Heston in the 1959 movie -- a wealthy Jewish youth in the time of Jesus Christ -- who is seeking revenge and reclaiming his identity after being betrayed by his friend Messala (Moore). VanCamp plays Esther, the daughter of a slave and Ben-Hur's love interest.

Also in the cast are Ray Winstone as Ben-Hur's adoptive father, Kristen Kruek ("Smallville") as his sister and Hugh Bonneville as Pontius Pilate.

Alex Kingston, Lucia Jimenez, Miguel Angel Munoz, Marc Warren, Art Malik and James Faulkner round out the cast of the Alchemy Television Group project, which is budgeted at north of $22 million.

The mini, which is competing against the memory of the William Wyler-directed Oscar-winning classic, will include the famous chariot race, which will be filmed in an oasis in the Moroccan desert.

Morgan is best known stateside for his work in "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World."

VanCamp stars on ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" and next appears in "Carriers" opposite Chris Pine.
Moore appeared in "The Bank Job."

I wonder what the Romans will look like...? :?

:wink:

Narukami

[Graham Sumner]

I wonder what the Romans will look like...?

If it is filmed in Morocco I can guess. Unless they make any special equipment and clothing I imagine it will be much the same as that used in the recent BBC production 'The Passion' seen last year. The same gear has also appeared in a number of documentaries also filmed there. The Legionaries have odd shaped bronze helmets, while the officers have the standard leather muscled cuirass.

Graham.

[Niedel]

It never ceases to amaze me how all they can come up with are remakes of classic movies/stories. Really. Does anybody at ABC really think this will be better than the '59 version (or the silent version, for that matter)? For 22 million (pretty much peanuts in movie-making nowadays)? Does anybody there ever think this will be a smashing success?
Like there are no other interesting subjects from Roman history, or even Roman historical novels, that have never been filmed. I'm looking forward to "Centurion" and "Agora", and if it's for that reason only and the movies disappoint, at least it's something new. One thing's for sure: The Italians at least filmed pretty much ANY part of Roman history during the peplum period. Most of the movies were pretty bad, but at least they came up with flicks about Coriolanus, Mucius Scaevola, Domitian, Zenobia etc.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Yeah, I'm still waiting for Gate's of Fire, , Tides of War, or something new to be made into a movie. Probably be dead and gone before that ever happens! :roll:

[Narukami]

I could not agree more.

There are so many great stories yet to be filmed, why another Ben Hur?

Or Spartacus (which is currently in principle photography for the Starz Cable Network. They hope to give it the "300 Look") hock:

So yes, I too am looking forward to Centurion and from the few production stills that are out it might actually look pretty good.

Of course, as Tarbacus has reminded us time and agian, we should not judge an unfinished project. Who knows -- we might get lucky and ABC will do a great job on the new Ben Hur.... :roll:

I know, I know -- I'm an eternal optimist.

:wink:

Narukami

[john m roberts]

The advantage of remaking these old films is that the publicity work is already done for you. People who know little to nothing else about ancient Rome hear "Ben-Hur" and they think: "chariot race!" They hear "Spartacus" and they think: "gladiators rebelling!" Like everything else Hollywood, it's all about budget and when you reuse a familiar story, you need to dedicate less of your budget to publicity.

[Theo]

My own dream for a film would be a massive effort at "Eagle in the Snow"! My soundtrack for it would be "Where Eagles Dare" - I listened to it whilst first reading the book back in 1970/71.

Theo

[barcid]

Ben Hur aye ,i hope they have one of the RAT guys as historical advisor ,could be good fingers crossed. one always should have your roof tiles well secured :lol:

[john m roberts]

Of course once again we'll have galleys rowed by slaves and Roman noblemen racing in the circus, but there's really not much the film makers can do about that since it's in Lew Wallace's book. He was a better general and territorial governor than historian.

[Arturus Uriconium]

There's a live arena show too.

http://www.benhurlive.com/?gclid=CL2Zvs ... 3godbEcT3w

[M. Demetrius]

It never ceases to amaze me how all they can come up with are remakes of classic movies/stories.

Two things come to mind here...one, that we have forgotten that the vast majority of old movies (or new movies) are not really all that good, so they don't get remakes in the first place. The second is the very limited number of plot lines available: I remember from school that there are only about a dozen or so (boy gets girl, boy loses girl, hero overcomes evil [and probably gets the girl], evil overcomes hero, love conquers indifference, hero sets aside self-goals for the good of the community, etc.) so the question really becomes one of how well the story line is developed, and whether we identify with the characters/plot in the story. They only remake the good ones, after all, and it seems that the care spent developing dialog and well-crafted story lines is less common today than in times past, but maybe I'm just waxing nostalgic. Who remembers Rodan? But we all remember Godzilla (remake is more slick, but there is nothing in it to compare with the originality of the Japanese originals, imo)

Look at how many books of fiction there are from the last decade or so, and try to figure out which will still be remembered in 50 years. We remember Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Shakespeare, and other writers from previous centuries, but how many authors have slid into the grey mists of time past, and nobody remembers them at all? Will Zane Grey still be considered "classic Western" in 2086? Louis Lamour? Jack Kerouack? Jan Cramer? Will Gone With the Wind still be considered a great novel then? Harlequin Romances?

So a remake of Ben Hur will be a neat thing. If done well (let's hope) it will help stimulate interest for our hobby, and maybe we will get some recruits as a result. Whose unit couldn't use a few more people to lengthen the line? Hope it's not another Last Legion or King Arthur disaster. That didn't seem to inspire many recruits, eh?

[Narukami]

Points taken Demetrius, well and fairly.

Indeed there are only so many basic plot lines, and yes, a well done Ben Hur could once again raise interest in ancient Rome. (Jasper will be kept busy explaining to one and all that the Roman Navy did not use slaves to row their ships.)

My question is why Ben Hur or Spartacus yet again? Yes, as John rightly points out, a re-make of a well know film brings with in a built in audience and may save you some PR money, but what a disappointment for the imagination.

Back in 1977 (before some of our members were born :oops: ) when Star Wars became a surprise hit, many of us thought that this would usher in a renaissance for Cinema Fantastic and we would see many of the great classics from Clark, Asimov, Heinlein, etc. on film. And indeed, we did see a few (a lot of Philip K Dick stories were made into films, some better than others) but what we mostly saw were rip offs of Star Wars. (Riddley Scot said that when he saw Star Wars he told his agent "I'm making the wrong films." and his next big hits were Alien and Blade Runner.)

We can hope that the New Ben Hur and Spartacus will be good (I just saw the last five minutes of The Last Legion -- what were they thinking?) but I would rather see the money and energy put into stories of ancient Greece and Rome we have not seen yet.

As for which writers will be remembered 50 years from now... Good question. I would guess Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five will still be read. Probably Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.... I would like to think TH White's The Once and Future King or Robert Graves I, Claudius would be, but they are already fading from popular view. Although portions of White's work have been filmed (Camelot, Sword in the Stone) no one has attempted the entire book -- I would rather see that than yet another Ben Hur. :|

Good question Demetrius.

:wink:

Narukami

[Graham Sumner]

Hi

Film makers like to remake films that have a proven track record rather than take a chance on anything completely new. In these cash strapped days it is a wonder they would even contemplate making an epic of any kind so for that we must be grateful. However I am always struck by the fact that a Roman film has to be an 'epic'. A bit of clever scriptwriting could easily portray many small scale events or fictional stories set in Roman times. 'Centurion' might just fall into this category. An old BBC drama call 'Red Shift' was another. 'Dog Soldiers' could easily have been a contuburnia of Romans fighting werewolves!

As pointed out it is unlikely that an accurate version of Ben-Hur will ever me made because the story itself is so inaccurate! Do not get Jasper started on the navy, what with all those slave powered ships!

Anyone tossing tiles on a passing Governor, which should in fact be the Prefect, would probably have been crucified straight away! As far as I know Romans had no large prisons. Thus removing the entire rest of the plot at a stroke. If you ended the story there, perhaps with just a few ammendments it could indeed be very accurate but a lot shorter!

In the famous film version there is a mention of 'two more legions' arriving and presumably adding to an existant Legionary force, a brutal occupation force of course, without which Ben-Hur would not have been able to enrich himself through the trade routes, protected by said brutal occupaton force! In fact we know the Roman force in Judaea at that time consisted of little more than six Auxiliary Cohorts.

Charioteers of course also rode in teams, not as individuals representing various nations of the empire and I have never come across a serving military tribune taking part in the races.

Compared to these errors, the odd leather breastplate here and there is probably going to be a minor fault.

Graham.

[M. Demetrius]

Well, to quote a famous US TV news reporter, "...the facts may be wrong, but the story is still true...."
Gotta love it, eh?

I am holding out hope that it will be at least a somewhat corrected from the original Roman gear. I am sure there must be a rack of hamata hanging somewhere...Heck, I'd loan them mine and my son's. But alas, they will probably go with something more Hollywoody: leather segmentata and those awful matte brown Rome scuta. But I am still holding out hope. Am I being naieve? Time will tell.

[Theodosius the Great]

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said here. Although I agree with Niedal I would go even further and ask : what could possibly be improved in the definitive version to begin with ? In fact, how could they hope to even equal any aspect of the classic film ? Not only did the film have an unprecedented budget, it was backed by the best talent of the day. This latest project has neither of those backing it up. It will be inferior in almost every way imaginable, I predict.

To answer my first question : The only parts that can be improved upon are the naval battle scene [my favorite part of the film, btw] and the costumes. Both of which require a hefty budget [even if they were to simply to reproduce the old quality.]

For my second question : Perhaps the acting quality of the original could be achieved. English actors are inexpensive. But that's all I can see.

Yes, they could produce a more historically accurate movie but it wouldn't be 'Ben Hur' anymore, as Graham pointed out.

If people want to see / read good, classic, historical fiction they can pick 'Quo Vadis'. I've never seen a more accurate piece of historical fiction - just about every character, including the minor ones, is real and portrayed quite realistically. I counted at least twelve of them : Nero, Saints Peter and Paul, Aulus Plautius, Pomponia Graecina, Acte, Theon, Tigellinus, Poppea, Petronius, Lucan, Seneca , and Nerva. There are historical characters in other films like Spartacus and Gladiator but they are fictionalized almost beyond recognition. But 'Fall of the Roman Empire' is probably Quo Vadis' closest rival in terms of accuracy.

Anyone tossing tiles on a passing Governor, which should in fact be the Prefect, would probably have been crucified straight away! As far as I know Romans had no large prisons.

I partly disagree. Ben Hur was a man of prominence (“the richest man in Jerusalem”) and his estranged friend was in command at that point (since the Prefect was unconscious). So, I thought that part of the film was justified. But not, of course, his being sentenced to the galleys. He would have been crucified unless Messala could intercede by finding a lesser sentence like exile.

As for prisons, did the Antonia Fortress not have a prison ? Maybe the Romans inherited some other prisons from Herod ?

In the famous film version there is a mention of 'two more legions' arriving and presumably adding to an existant Legionary force

Since the last part is not explicitly stated in the film it need not be interpreted that way. We know that from time to time the governor of Syria did indeed march his legions through Judea as a show of force. Although I can see why people would infer that they were coming to stay. Messala did say that there was “rebellion in the wind, it will be crushed”.

Another questionable part of the film is the battle against the pirates. Pompey cleared the Mediterranean of pirates in his day but piracy did flare up from time to time afterwards, IIRC. Besides, since the film never explictly states that the fleet was sent to clear the Mediterranean it could be interpreted that they were clearing the Black Sea. (I always try to think of more plausible interpretations to reconcile these films with history ;-) ) )

~Theo