I am all but certain an upstart film company could set up in a right to work state and produce blockbusters based on Bible stories. I can’t believe no one ha s done it.
I think Mel Gibson had this idea and his personal demons caused him too many problems to really continue.
Such a simple premise. No need to buy rights to a novel, it is public domain and the stories are already well told. All you have to do is adapt them faithfully to film. Exodus should have been the easiest to do . The other books of Moses would make great sequels.
Those kinds of epics are expensive to make. The costumes, sets, locations, etc. run into some major dinero, not to mention the sheer scale necessary to recreate the battle scenes or mass gatherings. Even with CGI, the costs are so staggering that indies can’t really take on those projects. And to do them poorly is worse than not doing them at all (look at the recent “Atlas Shrugged” disaster).
Mel Gibson could raise the capital on the strength of his name. Too bad he went ‘round the bend.
I suppose something could be crowd-sourced ...