20.08 Director Bekmambetov in Talks Over
MOSCOW, August 20 (RIA Novosti) Timur Bekmambetov, who directed some of Russias highest-grossing films, is in talks with the MGM film studio about remaking the classic historical epic Ben-Hur, Deadline.com reported Monday.
Released in 1959, Ben-Hur won 11 Academy Awards, including one for best picture a record broken only in 1997 by David Camerons Titanic, according to entertainment and film website IMDb.com. That rendition of Ben-Hur, though, was actually a remake of a 1925 silent movie based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace.
The film follows a Jewish nobleman who lived in Roman Judea at the same time as Jesus Christ. Unjustly sentenced to the galleys for life, the nobleman, Judah Ben-Hur, finds freedom and returns home to take revenge on the judge in a thrilling chariot race. During the film, Ben-Hur encounters Jesus several times and eventually becomes a Christian.
Kazakh-born Bekmambetov shot to global fame with the 2004 release of the Russian vampire blockbuster Night Watch and its sequel, Day Watch. He directed three of the 10 top-grossing Russian films released after the 1991 Soviet collapse, according to filmography site Kinopoisk.ru.
Bekmambetovs Hollywood credits include the 2012 fantasy horror Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and the 2009 crime thriller Wanted, which starred Angelina Jolie. Bekmambetov also produced Apollo 18, a 2011 sci-fi horror directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego.
