Although we’ve yet to hear of any progress on The Legend Of Cain, where Will Smith will render the Bible obsolete by putting vampires in it, Collider reports that he’s already approaching another film where God gets a co-writing credit: Joe, to be scripted by The Fighter’s Paul Tamasy and writing partner Eric Johnson, will cast Smith in a modern-day retelling of the Book of Job, which is the story where the Almighty takes a bet with Satan that He can totally ruin one of his most devoted follower’s lives, and that the tormented will still eat it up and ask for seconds, because what’s he gonna do—it’s God. (It’s sort of like Trading Places, with more boils and sadism, or more recently the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, with a slightly more upbeat ending.)
Joe will obviously be a more modern retelling, with Smith playing a well-to-do family man who gets hit with God’s wrath and must find a way to bounce back with that signature Will Smith swagger and pluck. Currently David O. Russell is being courted to direct (and then subsequently abandon the project once someone forgets to lock a door), but even once they land a director, Smith still has to finish Men In Black 3 first, which has become its own wandering-the-desert ordeal. But Will Smith in an arrogance-off with God—sounds solid.