Stephen Moyer lays down his fangs, but keeps it dark for his next role when he picks up a Roman toga as Pontius Pilate in National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Jesus.”
Kelsey Grammer will play King Herod in the channel’s adaptation of Fox News Channel star Bill O’Reilly’s book Killing Jesus. Meanwhile, Stephen Moyer will play Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. Haaz Sleiman (The Visitor) will portray Jesus.
Grammer has been cast as “the unrelenting and ambitious Roman King of Judea, who attempted to kill Jesus at his birth,” NatGeo said in today’s announcement. Moyer (True Blood), who famously played Captain Von Trapp in NBC’s much-watched (around 19 million Live + Same Day — including some much documented hate-viewing) live broadcast of The Sound of Music last year.
Based on the best-seller by O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, the film chronicles the life of Jesus of at a time of intense political and social and conflict in the Roman Empire that ultimately led to his death.
In March, NatGeo said Killing Jesus would be a four-hour miniseries. Law & Order veteran Walon Green was tapped to write and executive produce the project, based on the book Killing Jesus: A History by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard which came out in September 2013. Returning for Killing Jesus is the team behind the Killing Lincoln and Killing Kennedy movies: Executive producers O’Reilly and Scott Free Productions’ Ridley Scott, David Zucker and Mary Lisio. The project films this fall with UK-based Chris Menaul directing.
Last November, National Geographic Channel aired the Scott Free production of O’Reilly’s Killing Kennedy, a 2014 Emmy nominee for best television movie and the most-watched program in the channel’s history. The network’s second-most-watched program is the trio’s Killing Lincoln, which aired over Presidents’ Day weekend in February 2013. Religion-themed event programming is still considered a hot commodity, thanks to the success of History’s The Bible miniseries. A Bible sequel is in the works at NBC, while WGN America has greenlighted a Ten Commandments event series.
source: deadline.com
