Ben-Hur news round-up: Is the new film a “Trojan horse”?

Another week, another round-up of Ben-Hur news items, plus a few new TV spots.

First, Christian Today has a few quotes from Roma Downey, who calls the film “the most riveting opportunity of our [i.e. hers and Mark Burnett’s] careers”:

“It’s a feast, a beautiful re-imagining of this epic story. I think that the movie in many ways is a Trojan horse, because it’s an action/adventure movie and it delivers on that, and viewers won’t be disappointed with that. It’s epic. But…it’s a story of redemption, a story of reconciliation, a story about forgiveness,” she says about the film.

Second, the gospel duo Mary Mary indicated in an Instagram post that they are recording a new song for Ben-Hur. It is not clear whether this would be for the film’s official soundtrack or for a “music inspired by the film” album of some sort.

Third, Motive Entertainment is inviting churches and other potential sponsors to buy out entire theatres on August 18 for a “National Premiere” event that will feature “Special exclusive content before and after the movie featuring cast & crew”.

Finally, Paramount has released four TV spots to promote the film:

Ben-Hur officially comes to theatres August 19, or one month from tomorrow.

Check out earlier trailers and other videos here:

• The first domestic and international trailers, the ‘Welcome to ShareBenHur.com’ video, and the Entertainment Tonight promo (March 16, 2016)
• The ‘Epic Faith’ trailer (March 23, 2016)
• The ‘Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus’ featurette (March 25, 2016)
• The second faith-based trailer (June 8, 2016)
• The Entertainment Tonight reports (June 11, 2016)
• The ‘Chariot Race’ featurette and Entertainment Tonight report (June 13, 2016)
• The ‘Epic’ featurette (July 6, 2016)
• The ‘Jesus the Carpenter’, ‘Jesus Protects the Leper’, ‘Judah and Esther at Camp’ and ‘Judah Helps Jesus’ clips (July 10, 2016)
• The ‘Ceasefire’ music video (July 13, 2016)