Christian Bale is Moses in First Look at Ridley Scott's 'Exodus'

Christian Bale's chameleonic ability to transform and melt into vastly different characters has never been more on display in the last few weeks. We've seen him as a down 'n out blue collar joe in Out of the Furnace, and as a pudgy, bombastic con artist in American Hustle. So there's really only one place to go from there, right? And that's play the guy who parted the Red Sea and gave us the Ten Commandments.

Empire has revealed the first image from Ridley Scott's Exodus, featuring Bale as Moses atop a horse as slaves toil behind him. The story will chronicle his birth and childhood as an adopted son of the then-Pharoah, raised as a royal alongside Rhamses II, played by Joel Edgerton. Moses would eventually give up his life of privilege and lead the Israelites to freedom, leading to all of the miraculous events we saw in that Charlton Heston movie.

Also starring Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, Aaron Paul, and John Turturro, Exodus parts the waves on December 12th 2014.

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Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, Aaron Paul, and John Turturro Join Ridley Scott's 'Exodus'

It's never easy to predict where Ben Kingsley will turn up next or what role he'll undertake. He's such a chameleon that he could do pretty much anything. Already this year he's played a supervillain in Iron Man 3 and a terrorist in the festival award-winning drama A Common Man, and soon he'll be a futuristic war hero in Ender's Game. But for his next role he's going to get downright Biblical in Ridley Scott's Exodus, and he's bringing along a few friends.

Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, John Turturro and Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul will join the Biblical epic, which has Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Egyptian pharaoh Ramses. Steve Zaillian wrote the most recent script, which is said to explore the sibling-like relationship between the two, which got worse once Moses began leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Weaver, getting a chance to reteam with her Aliens director, will play Ramses' mother, while Tuturro is his father. Kingsley is a Hebrew scholar and, interestingly, Paul will be Joshua, the slave who leads the people into the promised land of Canaan after Moses' death.

So yeah, that casting is pretty much coming out of left field. Exodus hits theaters on December 12th 2014.

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Joel Edgerton Joins Christian Bale in Ridley Scott's 'Exodus'

The Bible is totally hot right now, with the highest-rated miniseries of the year and Darren Aronofsky delivering his big-budget epic, Noah, next March. Along with that, Ridley Scott has been developing his Moses biopic Exodus for some time, but it really took off when Christian Bale was eyed for the title role last spring, and it looks like he's now officially on board with a hot co-star ready to get all Biblical and stuff.

Joel Edgerton, coming off a fierce turn in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, is in talks to play the pharoah Ramses in the film, which features a most recent rewrite by Steve Zaillian. Apparently he wasn't Scott's first choice, with The Wrap noting that Javier Bardem was offered the role but turned it down, which is weird because it would have given him another chance to sport a wacky hairdo, or at least a cool headdress. The story will chronicle the relationship between the two, Moses' leading of the Israelites out of Egypt, probably that trick with the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, and other stuff I only know about from movies. They took that whole 40 days and 40 nights thing from the Josh Hartnett movie, right?

So outside of the...ahem...colorless casting it's still the sort of big budget period drama that Scott is extremely good at. Filming is set to begin next month and there will probably be other huge stars added before then. Exodus is slated to open on December 12th 2014.

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