Paramount shows exhibitors some more Ben-Hur footage

Paramount promoted its upcoming films at CinemaCon yesterday, and one of them, of course, was the upcoming remake of Ben-Hur, which comes out August 19.

It sounds like the studio unveiled some new footage from the film, though nothing too revealing — and, given how director Timur Bekmambetov has been insisting lately that the film’s chariot race is “all real”, it’s interesting how a lot of the reports coming out of CinemaCon have suggested that the chariot race is full of digital effects.

JoBlo reports:

They showed us the currently released trailer with an extended look at the chariot scene in the arena, complete with some serious smash-and-crash damage and brutality, which seemed to do more harm to the (surely digital) horses than anything. We also got a peek at Rodrigo Santoro’s Jesus interacting with Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) and a bit more from Morgan Freeman’s character (okay, mostly him yelling “Go!”) Timur Bekmambetov looks to have made, if anything else, an entertaining romp more so than a film that’s attempting to dethrone Heston’s classic.

Variety reports:

The 1959 iteration of the beloved Lew Wallace book still shares the record for most Oscar wins in history (11, with “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”). But Bekmambetov’s vision — an action-packed adventure aimed at modern audiences — won’t likely be treading those waters. The riveting chariot race sequence, for instance, has been turned up to 11, far more brutal and visceral.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

“Ben-Hur” — A remake of the 1959 classic appears to take full advantage of 2016 special effects, with the chariot scenes of the swords-and-sandals epic playing like intense Nascar races. Jack Huston fills Charlton Heston’s shoes as a former slave avenging his family in the racetrack. The movie is also hoping to tap faith-based audiences, and the footage shown Monday featured shots of its star with arms spread, an apparent allusion to Christ on the cross.

And Deadline reports:

Extensive footage of the famous chariot race from Ben-Hur certainly benefitted from strides in CGI action and the movie is even being offered in 3D!

Deadline also addressed the film’s new, late-August release date:

Its dog days of August opening gives one pause, but perhaps Paramount has discovered a faith-based audience dying to see a biblical epic like this at the end of summer.

Perhaps. But relying on the “faith-based” niche only gets you so far.

It is worth noting that War Room, the top-grossing independent evangelical movie of all time, came out in late August — but it had a small-ish opening and stayed afloat due to strong word-of-mouth. That is not the usual trajectory for a big-budget epic.

War Room also topped out at $67.8 million, which is just a wee bit more than the $65 million that Exodus: Gods and Kings earned two years ago — and that film, the last non-niche big-budget Bible movie, was considered a box-office disappointment.

Ah well. Ben-Hur’s release date is only four months and one week away, so we’ll find out how well it does — and what sort of audience it attracts — soon enough.

Update: Bekmambetov clarifies the “real” vs. CGI question via Business Insider:

That’s not to say CGI is entirely absent from the sequence.

Many of the wide shots of the crowd were enhanced with computer graphics, and there’s a shot in the trailer of a horse that gallops into the crowd — done with, yes, CGI magic.

But Bekmambetov said the “goal was to do as much in-camera as possible.”

Bekmambetov also says the “all real” approach was inspired by Hardcore Henry.