The First Murder – CAIN AND ABEL, Will Smith Director

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Is this Friday the 13th or April Fool’s Day?

Sifting through the news wire hits that are flooding out of Comic-Con, I come across this weird creature – that Will Smith is considering directing a film about “the first murder,” Cain and Abel.

My first thought – no, second, I guess, considering the one above – is whether it would be a comedy. I supp0se it could be done in a kind of Year One vein. Smith could bring his characteristic zany brand of humor, rendering the clash between the Bible’s original feuding brothers as a kind of “Coyote and Roadrunner” affair. Sides would be split and marginal box office would be made.

But given the title of the project, The Redemption of Cain, I don’t think they’re looking at this as a potential laugh factory.

No, they’re serious about it. So serious that, regardless of Will Smith, Director-to-be, this baby is getting made. Report has it Sony has signed off on its development and soon, courtesy of Overbrook Entertainment, The Redemption of Cain shall be at hand.

Then I realize, of course they’re serious. Who wouldn’t be dead serious about a Creationist murder mystery?

After all, wide swaths of our great nation actually believe in Creationism. At last comes a big budget flick that speaks to them. And if the portrayal in the film veers away from the nebulous canon established by the Bible or the ever-changing accounts produced by the upper echelons of modern-day Creationists, that won’t stop them.

It’s the spirit of the thing; not the facts. Just enough fact-ish-ness, and you’re set. Let’s not forget that one of the most profitable films of the last decade was scripted in Aramaic and Latin for a reason.

So, yeah, Will Smith might be enjoying his directorial debut with his own Passion of the Christ.

It can follow up Darren Aronofsky’s Noah.

Oh, yeah. That’s a thing too.

It’s like Hollywood just woke up to how old-school, coloring-book-style religion makes massive cash.

Somewhere, Cecil B. DeMille is rolling in his gold-thread-lined grave.