First Look: Christian Bale As Moses In Ridley Scott's 'Exodus'

Update From Editor Peter Sciretta: Entertainment Weekly has released a new photo of Christian Bale as Moses in Ridley Scott's Exodus. Hit the jump to see it now.

The original story from Angie Han from December 20th 2013 follows:

Next year marks the start of what's poised to be Hollywood's next big trend: the Biblical epic. Darren Aronofsky's Noah will be first out of the gate in March, and following some months later will be Ridley Scott's Exodus, about the classic hero Moses.

We've already seen trailers for the former, but the latter is just now releasing its first official still. Although the film features quite a cast, this photo focuses squarely on its lead star, Christian Bale. Hit the jump to check it out.

As the watermark suggests, Empire posted the photo. It's impressive how pristine Moses' white cloak looks, considering that this takes place in a dusty desert centuries before modern dry cleaning was invented. As miracles go, though, it's still pretty minor compared to the other things Moses gets up to in the Bible, like chatting with God via burning bush, receiving the Ten Commandments directly from God, and parting the Red Sea.

The photo doesn't offer a great look at Bale's Moses getup, since he's mostly covered by that cloak. But the chameleonic Bale has gone from superhero to drug addict to '70s con man to Rust Belt factory worker in the past few years alone. A prophet of God shouldn't be much more of a challenge — at least if you can overlook the fact that he looks awfully English for a prince of Egypt.

It's too bad that none of Bale's co-stars are seen in the picture above, because Scott's collected an excellent lineup. Joel Edgerton plays Egyptian pharoah Ramses, Sigourney Weaver and John Turturro play his royal parents Tuya and Seti, Aaron Paul co-stars as a follower of Moses, and Ben Kingsley rounds out the cast as a Hebrew scholar. No doubt we'll have plenty of chances to see them in action before the film opens December 12, 2014.