New Version of 'Ten Commandments' in Mini-Series on ABC
When Robert Halmi Sr. began developing a new version of the 1956 movie classic "The Ten Commandments" as a mini-series for the ABC network, there was just one source of disagreement. Unfortunately, it concerned the production's pivotal scene: the parting of the Red Sea.
Mr. Halmi, the executive producer, initially considered dropping the sea split altogether. He never cared for the tidy swath Cecil B. DeMille's Moses carved through the water, which he likened to a "paved major highway."
"I thought, 'What a horrible way to part the Red Sea,' " Mr. Halmi recalled. "I thought I could do things much more realistically."
So he proposed using a strain of biblical scholarship that theorizes that the ancient Hebrews waded through a salt marsh known as the Sea of Reeds just as the wind caused its water level to recede. But the network insisted on sticking with the parting sea.
Mr. Halmi, whose company, RHI Entertainment, is producing the series, agreed, but he did wrangle a concession: the smooth lane imagined by DeMille would be reconfigured as a rocky, muddy median.
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Mr. Halmi, the executive producer, initially considered dropping the sea split altogether. He never cared for the tidy swath Cecil B. DeMille's Moses carved through the water, which he likened to a "paved major highway."
"I thought, 'What a horrible way to part the Red Sea,' " Mr. Halmi recalled. "I thought I could do things much more realistically."
So he proposed using a strain of biblical scholarship that theorizes that the ancient Hebrews waded through a salt marsh known as the Sea of Reeds just as the wind caused its water level to recede. But the network insisted on sticking with the parting sea.
Mr. Halmi, whose company, RHI Entertainment, is producing the series, agreed, but he did wrangle a concession: the smooth lane imagined by DeMille would be reconfigured as a rocky, muddy median.