Film-Maker Ridley Scott Plans Trio of Biblical Epics

Moviegoers are in line for a series of biblical blockbusters, as director Sir Ridley Scott plans to unleash a trio of movies based on biblical stories in the coming months.

The director's first biblical foray will be Exodus: God and Kings, which casts British actor Christian Bale as a warlike Moses battling his boyhood friend, the Egyptian pharaoh Rhamses, played by Joel Edgerton.

The $200 million (£116m) movie will open at Christmas but the official trailer has already been released online.

Scott has already announced he will follow the Exodus film with David, about the young warrior's battle with the giant Goliath, and his subsequent 40-year rule as King David of Israel. This will be followed by Killing Jesus, a television movie that Scott will also direct. It is expected to be a less graphic version of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which featured several blood and unflinching scenes of Jesus being tortured and killed by Jewish soldiers and leaders.

The Passion of the Christ – which grossed $300 million (£650m) at the box office worldwide - is said to have piqued Hollywood's interest in biblical tales and kicked off the new trend in big-budget bible story depictions.

Scott also directed Kingdom of Heaven, the 2005 crusader story. At the time he said: "I do not put much stock in religion – I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination who call it 'the will of God'. I have seen too much religion in the eyes of murderers.

"I am not fighting another holy war here, I am trying to get across the fact that not everyone in the west is a good guy and not all Muslims are bad. The tragedy is that we still have a lack of understanding between us and it is 900 years since the crusades."