Jack Huston cast in Ben-Hur remake: Boardwalk Empire actor to follow in the footsteps of Ramon Novarro & Charlton Heston
Jack Huston, best known for playing World War I veteran-turned-bootlegger-cum-assassin Richard Harrow in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, may star in the latest Ben-Hur “remake,” to be jointly produced by Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. I have “remake” between quotes because officially this fourth big-screen version of the semi-biblical epic (more on that below) isn’t an actual remake of either the multiple Oscar-winning 1959 Ben-Hur or its 1925 predecessor, but a direct adaptation of former Civil War general Lew Wallace’s 1880 bestselling novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (also the title of the 1925 film version), which happens to be conveniently in the public domain.
Timur Bekmambetov, whose credits include the successful Angelina Jolie-James McAvoy thriller Wanted and the supernatural cult classic Night Watch, has been attached as director of what is in fact A Tale of the Jewish Prince Judah Ben-Hur, who becomes, in succession, a galley slave, a Romanized ace charioteer, and finally, a Christian convert. Production on Ben-Hur is scheduled to take place in Europe – where exactly remains unclear – in 2015.
Deadline.com was the publication that enthusiastically broke the news of Jack Huston getting cast in the Ben-Hur remake – or readaptation, if you wish. Taking a more cautious approach, The Hollywood Reporter has so far “confirmed” that Huston is “in talks” to star in the role that turned Ramon Novarro into a superstar back in 1925, and that (however absurdly) earned Charlton Heston a Best Actor Academy Award at the 1960 Oscar ceremony. In other words, at least until yesterday (Sept. 17) the Reporter had confirmed only that Jack Huston’s casting remained unconfirmed.
Would-be ‘Ben-Hur’ Tom Hiddleston goes ‘Kong’
A mere month ago, Deadline heralded the possibility that Tom Hiddleston, reviled and/or admired worldwide as Chris Hemsworth’s a.k.a. Thor’s arch-enemy Loki, would star as Ben-Hur. Yet that turned out to be a no-go, as Hiddleston got himself attached to Legendary Entertainment’s Skull Island, about the origins of another bigger-than-life screen hero, King Kong.
As an aside, Tom Hiddleston would have been a great Messala – Ben-Hur’s best friend-turned-worst enemy, and the role for which Jack Huston was originally tested.
Morgan Freeman to have key supporting role in Ben-Hur remake
In case Jack Huston has indeed been or does eventually get cast as Ben-Hur, he will likely be playing opposite Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby, 2004), a Wanted cast member whose name has been attached to a key supporting role in Timur Bekmambetov’s film: Sheik Ildarem (spelled “Ildarin” on the IMDb), the (previously West Asian) man who teaches Ben-Hur the art of chariot racing.
Plastered with brown make-up, Welsh actor Hugh Griffith won the 1959 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for doing quite a bit of scenery-chewing as the Sheik.
Ben-Hur 2016 remake to place stronger focus on Jesus?
The Ben-Hur remake will reportedly place a stronger emphasis on Jesus’ story than its predecessors, whose focus was on Ben-Hur’s twisting-and-turning fate. The screenplay was penned by Keith Clarke (of the box office flop The Way Back), with rewrites by Academy Award winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave); both Clarke and Ridley are listed as executive producers, alongside Jason F. Brown (the TV series The Expanse) and Roma Downey, whose credits include Christian-themed fare such as Son of God and the TV miniseries The Bible.
If, very much unlike the previous Ben-Hur movies, all goes as planned, the Paramount-MGM co-production will be released in late February 2016. That may seem like a curious time of year for the launch of a potential chariot-and-sandal blockbuster – until one remembers that director Christopher Spencer’s similarly situated (though not quite similarly themed), $22 million budget Son of God went on to gross $59.7 million in North America following its late February 2014 release.
Even more impressively, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which opened in late February 2004, ultimately reached $370.3 million (not adjusted for inflation) at the domestic box office. And in case you’re wondering, Darren Aronofsky-Russell Crowe’s $125 million budget Noah opened in late March 2014. The CGI-filled biblical epic scored a highly disappointing $101 million in the U.S. and Canada, but enjoyed a smoother voyage internationally, cuming at an estimated $359.2 million worldwide.
Jack Huston in ‘Boardwalk Empire.’
Jack Huston movies
Unlike Ramon Novarro and Charlton Heston at the time of their Ben-Hur casting, Jack Huston isn’t a bona fide movie star. On the big screen, the London-born Huston, who’ll be turning 32 next Dec. 7, has had mostly supporting roles in a variety of films, ranging from the low-budget Sienna Miller vehicle Factory Girl (2004) to the Kristen Stewart-Robert Pattinson blockbuster The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), in which Huston is briefly seen as the fiancé-turned-rapist of vampire-to-be Rosalie (Nikki Reed).
More recently, he was seen in David O. Russell’s Academy Award-nominated American Hustle and, playing Jack Kerouac, in John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg.
Upcoming Jack Huston movies include:
- Lulu Wang’s romantic comedy-drama Posthumous, also featuring Brit Marling and Lambert Wilson.
- George Tillman Jr.’s drama The Longest Ride, based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel, and featuring Clint Eastwood’s son Scott Eastwood, Britt Robertson, and veteran Alan Alda.
Additionally, Jack Huston will reportedly play Mr. Wickham in Burr Steers’ Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and he is rumored as a possible cast member in David Foote’s thriller Famous, with Dianna Agron and Rosario Dawson.
Jack Huston: SAG Award winner, member of illustrious film family
As part of the Boardwalk Empire ensemble, Jack Huston has been nominated for three SAG Awards. Earlier this year, Huston and his fellow American Hustle actors – among them Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jeremy Renner – took home the SAG Award for Best Cast in a feature film.
Also worth noting, Jack Huston is the son of Tony Huston, nominated for an Academy Award for his outstanding 1987 adaptation of James Joyce’s The Dead. Additionally, the screen’s (possible) next Ben-Hur happens to be a nephew of Danny Huston (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Clash of the Titans) and Academy Award winner Anjelica Huston (Best Supporting Actress for Prizzi’s Honor, 1985).
There’s more: Jack Huston’s grandfather was two-time Oscar winner John Huston, who won his statuettes for writing and directing The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and whose credits also include The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, and The Man Who Would Be King.
And finally, Jack Huston’s great-grandfather was another Oscar winner: Walter Huston, Best Supporting Actor for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and a Broadway and Hollywood veteran who starred opposite the likes of Joan Crawford, Irene Dunne, Kay Francis, Ruth Chatterton, and Loretta Young.
‘Ben-Hur’ with Ramon Novarro as a Jewish prince turned galley slave.
Ben-Hur movies
Making a long, complex story short: After becoming a monumental stage hit at the turn of the 20th century, the film rights to Ben-Hur were acquired by Goldwyn Pictures in the early 1920s. That deeply troubled production was inherited by MGM following the 1924 merger of Goldwyn with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Productions.
Replacing the originally cast George Walsh (brother of High Sierra and White Heat director Raoul Walsh), Ramon Novarro became a superstar following the late 1925 release of the Fred Niblo-directed film, the costliest Hollywood production and biggest worldwide box office hit until David O. Selznick’s 1939 film version of another bestseller, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.
Starring Charlton Heston in the title role and featuring Stephen Boyd as Messala, William Wyler’s elephantine 1959 Ben-Hur remake became one of the biggest and most prestigious blockbusters ever. As found at boxofficemojo.com, with an inflation-adjusted gross of nearly $800 million, Wyler’s Ben-Hur is the thirteenth biggest domestic box office hit in history, sandwiched between Irvin Kershner’s Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back and James Cameron’s 3D-boosted Avatar.
As for prestige, Ben-Hur 1959 took home a total of 11 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director – a record-setting feat that to date has been matched only by James Cameron’s other blockbuster, Titanic (1997), and by Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
The two Ben-Hur movies mentioned above now belong to Warner Bros. and its parent company, Time Warner. That’s undoubtedly a key reason for the (possibly) Jack Huston-starring Ben-Hur “remake” to be officially labeled an adaptation of Lew Wallace’s book.
‘Ben-Hur’ 1907 established copyright precedent
And let’s not forget the 1907 one-reel version (about 12 minutes) of Ben-Hur, one of the most important movies ever made for the simple fact that it established a precedent regarding film adaptations of copyrighted works. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ publisher Harper & Brothers and Lew Wallace’s estate (Wallace had died in 1905) sued Kalem Studios, the Motion Picture Patents Company, and adapter Gene Gauntier. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs.
Ben-Hur 1907 was directed by Sidney Olcott – notable as the director of what’s supposed to be the first five-reel movie ever made, the Christ-themed 1912 blockbuster From the Manger to the Cross. Olcott’s version of Ben-Hur focused on the chariot race, which pits the hero against his mortal enemy Messala; Herman Rottger was featured in the title role, while William S. Hart as his nemesis. Rottger’s sole claim to fame is this film, but Hart, who had played the same role on Broadway, would become a major cowboy movie star.
notes
Ramon Novarro Ben-Hur 1925 image: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Jack Huston Boardwalk Empire image: HBO.