After failing to get one Marvel movie villain to play the hero in its Ben-Hur remake, MGM and Paramount might be settling on a different Marvel movie villain to play its bad guy. According to Variety, the studios are in talks with Toby Kebbell to play treacherous jerkbag Messala, a role that should be easy from him to manage since he just wrapped up playing Doctor Doom in the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. This is a step in the right direction for the definitely necessary Ben-Hur remake, since seeing Loki befriend Jesus would have confused everybody, but seeing Doctor Doom torment a guy who is friends with Jesus is totally something he would do. In fact, we think the new Ben-Hur would be improved immeasurably if they just let Kebbell wear his Doctor Doom costume the whole time.
As we’ve previously reported, Boardwalk Empire’s Jack Huston will star as Ben-Hur himself, and the remake will apparently hew much closer to the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ than the Charlton Heston movie that was based on it. We’re not sure if Doctor Doom was in the original book at all, but he probably was, so this should work out just fine. The remake is being directed by Timur Bekmambetov, and it’s set to be in theaters in February of 2016.