‘Methuselah’: Michael B. Jordan Replaces Tom Cruise in Film About a Man Who Lives For Hundreds of Years

It’s been ten years since we first wrote about Hollywood’s attempt to make a Methuselah movie. There have been a few peaks and valleys over the ensuing decade, but today comes perhaps the most interesting news yet: the project is now being totally overhauled with a new leading man. Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther, Creed) will star in the story of the oldest man in the Bible, a guy who supposedly stayed alive for hundreds of years. Catch up with the latest Methuselah details below.

Deadline reports that Jordan will star in the new movie, taking over for Tom Cruise, who was attached to the film back in 2016. Jordan will produce the revamped version of the movie with his Outlier Society production company, alongside Harry Potter producer David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford. Deadline describes the film as having “Highlander-like mythology and franchise potential,” and that Jordan will play “a man who has managed to survive for hundreds of years, without showing the physical signs of age. In that time, he has accumulated vast intellectual knowledge, from multiple languages to the sciences, as well as survival skills.” In the Bible, Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. Anthony Hopkins portrayed him in the Darren Aronofsky movie Noah a few years back, but as far as I can tell, this will be the first time the character will been played in a movie by a black man.

Our last update on this movie came in the summer of 2017, when Michael Clayton writer/director Tony Gilroy came on board with a new take on the material. Weirdly, Deadline’s new report makes no mention of Gilroy’s involvement, so it’s unclear whether he’s still on board or if he’s moved on to other things. Zach Dean is another of the writers who’s taken a shot at the script. He wrote a 2012 Eric Bana movie called Deadfall, a 2017 Ethan Hawke film called 24 Hours to Live, and an unproduced script called Beast which made The Black List back in 2013.

Jordan has several projects in the works: he’s starring in the Tom Clancy adaptation Without Remorse in 2020, producing a movie called Black Leopard, Red Wolf that’s been described as “the African Game of Thrones,” he’ll star in Journal for Jordan for director Denzel Washington, and produce a mysterious monster movie set in Detroit with director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Jordan has a deal with Amazon as well, so we’re going to be seeing plenty of him over the next few years. Bring it on.

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