Jesse Pinkman to Help Lead the Jews Out of Egypt

Michael Tran/FilmMagic Aaron Paul

Dueling Bible blockbusters alert! Noah — Darren Aronofsky’s telling of the Ark tale, starring Russell Crowe as the last good man alive — has recently dominated the Old Testament–adaptation chatter. But there’s another big project on the horizon pulling from the non-Jesus section of the good book. It’s called Exodus, it’s being helmed by Ridley Scott, and it already stars Christian Bale as Moses, the leader of the Jews enslaved in Egypt, and Joel Edgerton as the pharaoh Ramses II, with whom Moses squares off (with a little help from God). Yes, my fellow chosen people: That means they could have also called this movie Passover.

Now Deadline reports: “Ben Kingsley is in talks to play a Hebrew scholar, John Turturro is set to play Seti, father of the Pharoah Ramses, Sigourney Weaver is set to play Ramses’ mother Tuya, and … Aaron Paul is negotiating to play Joshua, the Hebrew slave who leads the people into the promised land after Moses.” Let my people go, bitch! Etc., etc.

Speaking of his own film, Aronofsky has said “I’m … excited that Hollywood has finally agreed to make the first biblical epic in almost 50 years. It’s been a long time since Bible movies were on the screen, and there’s been a lot of advancements in technology and special effects, and maybe that’s the reason why Noah’s never been attempted on the big screen before, because of the size and scale of the deluge and all the different animals.” And go ahead and apply that to Exodus. Its frog downpour is gonna make the frog downpour in Magnolia look like nothing more than a little light frog-rain shower!

Filed Under: Aaron Paul, Christian Bale, Movie News, Ridley Scott

Amos Barshad has written for New York Magazine, Spin, GQ, XXL, and the Arkansas Times. He is a staff writer for Grantland.

Archive @ AmosBarshad