Right on the heels of Charlton Heston's death [1] earlier this week, there's news of a television miniseries version [2] of one of Heston's biggest projects: Ben-Hur. They are, however, keeping it in the family with David Wyler, son of the 1959 Ben-Hur director William Wyler, producing.

Though while the miniseries is meant to be a tribute to the elder Wyler and Heston, there will be some updates made to the material:

The new version will be based more specifically on the 1907 Lew Wallace source novel than either the 1959 version or earlier 1925 adaptation.

Wyler is looking to skew the lead role younger into his mid-20s. New version will also likely downplay the religious aspects of the source material.

"We want to look at the spirituality within the piece rather than directly relating it to a specific religion," said Wyler. "It's a very complex story. It’s been 50 years since my father’s version and we think we can bring something new and contemporary to it in the same way that Gladiator did for that genre."

So, who can you see playing this strapping young protagonist of the spiritual-not-religious Ben-Hur miniseries?

Source [3]