Just days after legendary actor Charlton Heston passed away, his most famous film, Ben-Hur is going to be remade into a television movie.  David Wyler producing the miniseries.  Funny enough, David Wyler is the son of William Wyler, the man who directed Ben-Hur with Heston. 

David Wyler is dusting off the family chariot to remake “Ben-Hur.”

Wyler, whose father William Wyler helmed the 1959 Oscar-winning feature starring the late Charlton Heston, is producing the new version as a miniseries with Alchemy TV.

Christian Duguay (“Coco Chanel,” “Human Trafficking”) will direct the $30 million project, which will start lensing this year.

Alchemy has already sold the miniseries to Spain, Germany and Canada, and Wyler is in negotiations with two networks and a cable channel for the U.S. rights.

The new version will be based more closely on the 1880 Lew Wallace novel than either the 1959 version or 1925 silent adaptation.

Wyler intends to skew the lead role younger, placing Ben-Hur in his mid-20s. New version will also downplay the religious aspects of the source material.

“We want to look at the spirituality within the piece rather than directly relating it to a specific religion,” Wyler said. “It’s a very complex story. It’s been 50 years since my father’s version, and we think we can bring something new and contemporary to it in the same way that ‘Gladiator’ did for that genre.”

Strangely enough, I don't have a problem with this being remade.  Maybe its because its a TV mini series... or maybe because the original is almost 50 years old.  Still, Ben-Hur is a totally classic film and it really doesn't need to be remade.  Its going to be interesting to see how the son of the director to the Heston classic will pull it off.  Anyways, I love these kind of movies and I'll watch it anyways.  I'm willing to bet however that it won't be even close to matching up to the classic.

Source: Variety

-Phil