An Epic Story Re-imagined In 'Ben-Hur'

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- It's an epic story that has been around for decades - the newly imagined "Ben-Hur." It stars Jack Huston as Judah Ben-Hur and Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus Christ.

The 1959 movie "Ben-Hur" was not just a film - it was a cultural phenomenon.

At first, when the director and the actors were approached to do its reincarnation, they were very skeptical. That was until they read the screenplay by Keith Clarke and John Ridley.

"It didn't in any way feel like it was stepping on shoes of its predecessors. It felt very much their own thing. It has great characters and this is what we do movies for. You don't get better characters than Ben-Hur and Jesus Christ," said Jack Huston.

"This is the epic story of Judah Ben-Hur , a prince falsely accused  of treason by his adopted brother, who is an officer in the Roman Army.  Stripped of his title and separated from those he loves, Judah is forced into slavery.

After years at sea, he returns to his homeland to seek revenge.

"The two words that come to my mind is revenge and then redemption," said CBS4's Lisa Petrillo.

"Yes," said Jack Huston. "That's sort of the beautiful thing about this. At a time when we're living in a world with so much anger and animosity and hatred, it's things like cinema which  is an art form, that gives us an opportunity to see things another way which are love, forgiveness, and redemption. This a movie that does that."

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The most iconic scene in the original film was, of course, the chariot race - brother against brother.  For the filmmakers, the decision was made this would not be CGI and the actors underwent 12 weeks of chariot training.

"We knew we had an epic battle making something like this, but that only gave us the impetus to make the best possible chariot scene we could. It took close to three months to shoot. Every time you see us on horses that's us on those horses because we realized the audience would only relate to that race if we were actually on it.  So we did everything we possibly could," Huston explained.

As for Rodrigo, playing the role of Jesus Christ was a serious undertaking he's still dealing with.

"Inevitably it ended up being a very personal intimate and transforming and inspiring journey. It's really hard to talk about this part because it's not just a part, it's so iconic it means so much," said Santoro.

"Ben-Hur" is in theaters August 19th.

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