Ben Hur to be Re-made for TV

Just four days after the death of Charlton Heston, Alchemy TV has announced that it is remaking one of his best known works. Ben Hur has, been filmed three times before, as well as being released as a cartoon voiced by Heston, but now according to Variety it's to be made into TV mini-series as well.

Personally I find the timing of this annoucement somewhat distasteful - an unnerving keenness to prize the horse whip from Heston's cold dead hands, but in fairness, producer David Wyler has dedicated the film to both Heston and his father. Wyler's father is, as you may have guessed, the great William Wyler who both directed the 1959 version and worked on the 1925 production.

Wyler also states that the new film will feature a younger Ben Hur, and that he wants the film to "look at the spirituality within the piece rather than directly relating it to a specific religion". At the same time he intends that the series will be more in line with Lew Wallace's original novel than its predecessors.

There's a bit more on this over at FilmChat including some footage from the 1907 version.