First Look At Ridley Scott’s Exodus

Next year sees a brace of Biblical epics, starting with Darren Aronofsky's Noah and finishing with Ridley Scott's Exodus, a retelling of the story of Moses, with Christian Bale stepping into Charlton Heston's massive sandals as the prophet and exodus-leader. Here, we see the former Batman in his days as an adoptive prince of Egypt, riding a very shiny horse and dressed in duds that would not disgrace Gandalf the White.

Moses was found, traditional has it, as a baby in the bullrushes, abandoned by a desperate mother when the then-Pharaoh ordered the murder of male newborns among his slaves. Found by the Pharaoh's daughter, he was raised with the royals, alongside the future Rhamses II (Joel Edgerton here). But a burning bush speaking with the voice of his people's god convinced Moses to lead the Israelite slaves to freedom, leading to the parting of the Red Sea and a 40-year trek through the desert. Where's a GPS when you need it, eh?

The 1956 Cecil B. De Mille film The Ten Commandments is one of the main reasons that people talk about epics being on "a Biblical scale", and we expect this to be similarly huge in scope; there are already reports of thousands of extras being cast on the film's Spanish sets.

Exodus also stars Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, John Turturro and Indira Varma, and hits UK cinemas on December 5, 2014. For much more on the film, pick up the new issue of Empire in either print or digital form, for our look ahead at the coming year.