By Travis Johnson
The new trailer for the upcoming Ben-Hur remake is here and, well, it’s a lot more churchy than we might have expected, leaning right into the subtitle of Lew Wallace’s original novel, Ben-Hur A Tale of the Christ.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing – 1st century Judea is rife with narrative possibilities, but judging from the (terrible) music, the (too solemn) tone and the (eyebrow-raising) focus on Rodrigo Santoro’s Jesus, this seems to be aiming for at least some of the market targeted by the recent Risen. The church/cinema-goer crossover market can be huge – just look at the receipts for The Passion of the Christ – but there’s always the risk of alienating secular audiences.
Ben-Hur tells the story of Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), a Jewish prince who is betrayed by his adoptive brother, Messala (Toby Kebbell) and enslaved. Ben-Hur escapes after years of imprisonment and vows revenge – the whole thing culminates in a massive chariot race, which is only a spoiler if you know nothing about the history of cinema whatsoever. In point of fact, the producers are counting on you knowing about the chariot race, and have released a featurette showing how much effort went into staging it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyUqD1zKU4I
Ben-Hur hits cinemas on August 25.
