Warner Bros Want Steven Spielberg To Direct GODS & KINGS

Deadline reports that Warner Bros are pulling out all the stops to secure Steven Spielberg to direct a giant sized film about the COMPLETE life of Moses titled Gods and Kings. The film was birthed on a treatment by Matti Leshem, the son of late Israeli Ambassador Moshe Leshem, and that was fleshed into a full script by two members of the Warner family - Michael Green (Green Lantern, Smallville) and Stuart Hazeldine (Paradise Lost). Based on the Book of Exodus and other stories from the Old Testament, the script covers the adventures of Moses from birth to death including;

his awakening to the plight of the Hebrew slaves that led Moses€™ struggle against the Pharaoh for their freedom out of Egypt; the Ten Plagues; the Burning Bush; the daring escape across the Red Sea; receiving the Ten Commandments, and delivery to Israel.

Insiders are quick to mention that this won't be a remake of the famous Cecil B. DeMille 1956 picture The Ten Commandments which was also a Moses re-telling and saw Charlton Heston in the leading role but as that may strictly be true... it's just like another Dracula adaptation. It's the same story/characters, it might as well be called a remake. Movie legend Spielberg has given WB the courtesy of reading their script but at this stage hasn't shown his cards as to where he stands with it and there's always a chance he will have no interest in it at all. He certainly hasn't done anything on this scale before. Obviously if he does want to make it Warner would have to share 50% of financing/profits with DreamWorks but clearly WB are thinking EPIC with this thing and believe the subject matter is so universal with the kind of mass appeal that they could make a fortune. If history tells us anything we should know that The Ten Commandments grossed $65 million in the 50's which is almost that elusive $1 billion mark adjusted for today's inflation. And if WB can secure one of the most commercial filmmakers of all time, they might be confident of having a Titanic-sized epic here. But 'if' and 'whether' they can secure Spielberg is a huge question mark. He is readying his Lincoln biopic to shoot in the next few weeks, then he has the explosions heavy, brainless, post-Transformers machine vs. humans summer spectacle Robopocalypse that already has a June 4th, 2013 tentpole release date in tact. Gods and Kings could be next after those but WB will have to wait a while for him and he's unlikely to make such a commitment to the film this early. As ever in Hollywood there is a direct competing project as 20th Century Fox have writers Bill Collage & Adam Cooper (strangely they have gone from New York Minute & Accepted to writing Marco Polo and Moby Dick movies and more recently Moses) and how the projected Moses biopic affects the slim chances of Darren Aronofsky getting the opportunity to re-tell Noah's Ark myth with target Christian Bale as his long-bearded, animal loving lead, is unknown. Of course at one point Aronofsky was being courted for a Moses film, perhaps even an earlier version of this one. P.S. - If Spielberg was to make the Moses biopic - Daniel-Day Lewis is the clear choice to lead...