Charlton Heston Follows Indiana Jones and Rocky in Sequel
Jan 5, 2007, 11:24
HOLLYWOOD - Look out Indiana Jones, better duck Rocky Balboa, time to Die Hard Bruce Willis. There's another Hollywood hero ready to break out of retirement and relive those glory days.
Charlton Heston is set to get back into the chariot race, and Paramount studios has already started production on the action-adventure blockbuster Ben Hur: The 11th Commandment.
Reps for Heston, 82, confirm that the star is “totally psyched” to be back, playing the roles of Ben-Hur and Moses that made him a star some forty years ago.
“Mr. Heston couldn't wait to update his iconic roles for a new generation. This is a great opportunity to make them both biblical and bodacious. Charlie really feels that a more mature Hur is a modern Hur. Just one look at those octogenarian calves in that toga and we're sure you'll agree.”
While Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle director McG was mum on script details, we did learn that the picture opens with Ben Hur stuck on kitchen duty on a Roman slave ship. After an action-packed escape while shouting “you damn dirty apron!," Heston learns that sexy siren Jessica Alba has been taken prisoner by those pesky Caesars. Heston is soon off to save the girl, the world, and a few heathen souls, too.
Of course there’s an amazing chariot race. Insiders tell us that while stuntmen did a lot of the work, Heston insisted on doing all his own standing.
But what about all that hubbub when Heston disclosed his battle with Alzheimer’s back in ’03?
“It really works to his advantage,” insists McG. "If he had any idea what his real age was and that it wasn't 5000 B.C., we never could have gotten the performance we did. Half the time he really thinks he is Moses. I smell Oscar, or at least lifetime achievement.”
Whatever the box office, lucrative tie-ins are already providing a Herculean boost to the bottom line. Already the NRA is promoting a Ben Hur senior discount on membership with proof of age and/or cataracts. There’s a nifty Moses edition of Depends adult diapers that promises, ‘Thou shalt not let your pants runneth over,’ and Ben Gay manages to get some prime product placement in the film when Ben Hur needs relief from the Ben Hurt.
So with everything old new again, what’s next on the horizon? Another Stake Out romp with Emilio Esteves and Richard Dreyfuss? A Beverly Hills Cop 15?
“No, no no,” laughed Paramount exec Randy Gold. “We' are in talks with Coppola, though, for a new installment of the Godfather series, Oh Godfather, Book 4.
"Francis is a go, but we're still courting Brando. Sure, he’s dead and all, but we'll make him an offer he can't refuse.”
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