A modern day retelling of the biblical story of Job has recently received one of Hollywood’s biggest stars’ guarantee of involvement.

Source: Collider

Tamasy: We sold a project to Sony with Overbrook and Will Smith. It’s a modern version of the story of Job.

Snider: Will Will Smith be playing Job?

Tamasy: He’ll be playing “Joe.” The movie’s called Joe. It’s about a man [who is living] the American dream. He’s got the nice house, white picket fence, great kids, great wife, nice cars. God and the devil get together every thousand years to bet on a man’s life, and the fate of the world is at stake.

What all of us get hit with in a lifetime, this man gets hit with in one week. And it’s about whether or not he can still pick himself up from that and survive it. It’s a dramedy. At it’s heart, it’s a comedy — but it’s got, obviously, a real dramatic core to it.

I think there’s always a fine line, and a slipperly slope, when marrying religion and Hollywood into a film. Will Smith is the name that is grounding this project for me as his film selection track record has rarely allowed him to be involved in a bad movie.

Will Smith has a lot of experience in the science fiction genre of films, and I feel he usually excels when his films have a comedic backdrop for him to rely so I’m looking forward to finding out more details on this project. I think it could be pretty cool to see what laundry list of, presumably humorous, ‘tests’ that God and the Devil would conjure up to punish Will Smith, with the level of special effects I’ve come to expect from a lot of his films, and it would be great if they get a good comedic pair to play the eternal beings.