Warner Bros. courting Steven Spielberg for another giant biblical epic about Moses

By Sean O'Neal | September 29, 2011 | 3:52pm

Aux Features Film

Jewish people celebrating Rosh Hashanah have already received the gifts of a Hanukkah movie not being made by Mel Gibson, and numerous awkward “Happy New Year—or do you say that?” sort-of jokes from their clueless gentile friends. Now they also have the prospect of a huge, Warner Bros.-backed epic about the life of Moses, a guy that Jews pretty much think is aces, like, just the tops. They’re also quite fond of Steven Spielberg, whom Warner Bros. is currently courting to direct their Moses story—which the studio takes pains to point out is absolutely not a remake of The Ten Commandments, even if it will similarly follow Moses from birth to death, hit highlights like his freeing of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt and their escape across the Red Sea, and touch on his occasionally contentious yet ultimately way-tight relationship with his buddy God. After all, that’s just how the story goes. You know, the story that God wrote? What, you want they should change the word of God?

Unfortunately, while Spielberg has shown some interest in Moses in the past with the DreamWorks Animation film The Prince Of Egypt, it also seems likely that he’ll be far too busy for the next couple of years shooting Lincoln and mounting the similarly epic Robopocalypse (as foretold in the Book of Revelation). Still, Spielberg has reportedly read and is currently considering taking on the script from Green Lantern co-writer Michael Green and Stuart Hazeldine, who, it should be noted, also wrote Warner Bros.’ upcoming 3-D “aerial warfare” adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. And with that film, this new Moses project, and the Warner Bros.-backed Mel Gibson/Joe Eszterhas take on Judah Maccabee, it definitely seems as though the studio took one look at all the rampant public domain scavenging of late, then decided to stake preemptive claim on some of the oldest stories in history. Perhaps Darren Aronofsky will have a place to make Noah after all.