Methuselah Newselah: Michael B. Jordan Gets Old For Danny Boyle (In The Biblical Sense)

Actor Michael B. Jordan, whose career since 1999 has been a nearly non-stop whirlwind of diverse, oftentimes genre-centric projects (such as Lucasfilm’s Red Tails, Marvel’s blockbuster Black Panther, Josh Trank’s Chronicle and...   well, that OTHER one from Trank...  you know what it is, hey) across nearly all media (including gaming) has signed up for yet another big project: this time with legendary Trainspotting helmsman Danny Boyle for Warner’s long-in-gestation biblical adventure epic, Methuselah.

If you like your bible stories (to paraphrase one Dr. Septimus Pretorius), Methuselah himself was the son of Enoch, and the grandfather of the famously wet-n-gamey Noah (who was played by Russel Crowe in 2014’s eponymous film), and is best-known for living to the ripe old, semi-kinky age of 969 years.

Similar to Noah, Hollywood will be taking a few liberties with the Book of Genesis source material: instead of being about a wizened millenni-atric patriarch, it is rumored to be focusing on a younger, ass-kicking (and perhaps immortal) Methuselah in the Highlander vein; with an eye toward - of course -  franchise/universe-building.

 This project has been kicking-around Hollywood for at least a decade, and (until now) had Tom Cruise attached as the lead. One could even imagine Michael B. Jordan’s continuously elevated career-arc (blowing up big, with the two hugely successful Creed films) reaching something akin to Cruise-level, minus that slightly unnerving, android creep-factor energy that Tom sometimes brings to the table.

This looks to be yet another extremely busy year for Jordan (who will also serve as a producer on Methuselah), as this news comes hot-on-the-heels of rumors circulating about him taking the role of Tony Montana in the upcoming Coen Brothers scripted, Luca Guadagnino-directed Scarface reboot. 

Hopefully Jordan will make a good combo with the similarly prolific/eclectic Boyle, who can also handily switch genres at will (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, Sunshine, The Beach, and so on). Jordan’s star continues to ascend, and we at The Movie Sleuth will be tightening our Bible-Belts securely for the ride. 

MR