‘Ben-Hur’ crashes at box office with $12m debut

The big budget remake of the Biblical chariot-racing epic “Ben-Hur” opened to an anticipated $12 million the first weekend, a far cry from the studio’s hoped-for summer blockbuster hit.

The latest retelling of the 1959 Oscar-winning film starring Charlton Heston scored has been slammed by critics, earning the film a paltry “30% fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes.

According to some analysts, the cast of “Ben-Hur” was too obscure to draw in box office numbers justifying its $100 million budget.

Early reviews of the film, starring British actors Jack Huston (Judah Ben-Hur) and Toby Kebbell (Messala), have been less than enthusiastic, with Variety describing Timur Bekmambetov’s remake as “sludgy and plodding,” and media outlets dubbing it “Chariots of Misfire” or “Chariots of Mire.”

Read: 2016 ‘Ben-Hur’ may be about a Jew, but there’s not much Jewish about it

Reviewer David Ehrlich of the Indiewire website singled out Bekmambetov for criticism, writing that the director “can hardly hide his disinterest in deepening the drama between his characters — he hitched his wagon to this heavy chariot just so that he could shoot the climactic horserace and the handful of savage set pieces that come before it.”

Paramount, which is co-funding “Ben-Hur” with MGM, was hoping the Biblical narrative will draw in the religious crowd, a demographic which in the past has been unwisely ignored.

While the 1959 version merely has the life story of Jesus as an offscreen context for the action, Bekmambetov has made the Christian messiah a star of the movie, not only showing his face, but bringing the crucifixion front and center.

“Part of the job we’ve been doing over the last few months as the film was being edited is going out into the churches across this country, across denominations, to show early screenings and get the support of the Church,” said producer Roma Downey.

The 56-year-old multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actress is entrenched in America’s Catholic community with husband and co-producer Mark Burnett, and the couple are known for religious programming including 2013 miniseries “The Bible.”

“Over the next 30 years, millions and millions of people will see ‘Ben-Hur’ and take away that thought of ‘let’s forgive someone.’ That would be so great,” Burnett said.

“When we did ‘The Bible’… everyone said ‘you guys have lost your mind — who’s going to watch the Bible on primetime TV?’ One hundred million Americans watched it.

“We said before we ever knew that number [that] over a billion people are going to watch this and people said these guys are crazy,” Burnett said. “It was way more than a billion people. In China alone over 400 million people watched the Bible series.”