Michael B. Jordan to Play … Methuselah? … in Film about Living to Be 900

Look folks, sometimes we’re just as dumbfounded by a strange headline as you are. This is certainly one of those times. We’re checking our calendars to make sure it’s not April 1 yet, over here.

I mean … what? A feature film adaptation of the biblical story of Methuselah, starring Michael B. Jordan? Even in the most rabidly Christian strongholds of the U.S.A., is there a single person who has ever specifically hoped for a film of this description? We’re finding that idea really hard to believe.

According to Variety, though, this is reality. Jordan will produce and star in Methuselah, about the man famously stated in the Bible to have lived to the ripe old age of 969. What will the film actually be ABOUT? According to Variety, “the scripts have focused on Methuselah’s survival skills.”

We are so, so confused here. So the films are about a 700-year-old man surviving for another day? Is the tone even biblical or Christian in nature, or is this more of a secular fantasy? Will Jordan look like his 32-year-old self, or will he be covered by a comical amount of age makeup? What other characters from the Book of Genesis might be appearing in this thing? And how could you possibly be thinking of anything at this moment, other than The Simpsons’ “Methuselah rookie card”?

According to Variety, Warner Bros. has been developing some version of the Methuselah movie for many years, with names like Will Smith and Tom Cruise previously attached as potential stars. This latest casting feels right, though—surely you want a sexy young man to play Methuselah, right? You’ve really got to sizzle the sexiness of a guy who lives to be almost 1,000.

It’s impossible to say what kind of content awaits us in Methuselah, but we hope there’s a gag where Methuselah is repeatedly visited by the Angel of Death throughout, but he ultimately lives so long that he outlives several iterations of death’s personification. It writes itself, right?

Assuming Methuselah is not some kind of elaborate hoax, we’ll bring you more information when it breaks.