A day after we found out the director of the next Jurassic Park movie, the film’s producer Steven Spielberg has opted out of one his future projects and this was a biggie. After courting the idea of doing a Moses film called Gods and Kings for Warner Bros., he eventually decided that his plate was too full or something to that effect. When this one was first announced, we all thought that the studio would get going way ahead of any other adaptation on the property (especially considering the buzz surrounding Darren Aronofsky’s Noah starring Russell Crowe.)
Unfortunately for them, this project has tread water for way too long and now a Fox adaptation of this biblical tale is creeping up with Ridley Scott at the helm. While we are not sure just how serious Scott is on the project, Deadline says he should shoot it after The Counselor (his next film) which means the wheels will start turning on that one rather quickly. Perhaps Spielberg’s exit was due to an accelerating time table because he is still hard at work on developing his Lincoln follow-up Robopocalypse.
With questions surrounding when that will arrive (it was supposed to shoot this spring,) that would mean Gods and Kings would have to be back-burnered for as long as a year, maybe two. Not to worry though as Warner Bros. is said to be looking to land Ang Lee who is coming off his Oscar win for Life of Pi. The director was in the news just yesterday when he joined production of the FX drama pilot Tyrant.
