This year is being dubbed the “Year of the Bible,” with Paramount Pictures’ Noah grossing more than $360 million worldwide and 20th Century Fox’s Son of God taking in $68 million. Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings debuts on Friday, and while early reviews are mixed and audiences are complaining about how the Oscar-nominated director is guilty of white-washing after he cast Christian Bale as Moses, early projections have the film earning a respectable $32 million in its opening weekend.

Exodus: Gods and Kings is an epic historical retelling of the biblical story of Moses, and is filled with massive battle scenes, plagues and a towering tidal wave. Moses’ story has been told in numerous films, but BoxOffice.com predicts that audiences won’t mind seeing it again and will help it earn $32 million in its opening weekend. Bale is also confident that, thanks to the film’s striking 3D visual effects, his epic version of Moses’ story will be something audiences have never seen before.

Bale has always been renowned for his ability to physically transform into a variety of roles, becoming an emaciated insomniac in The Machinist, a hefty and sleazy con man in American Hustle, and a handsome superhero in the Dark Knight trilogy. This film forces the Oscar-winning actor to transform into one of his most complicated and demanding roles ever – a simple man who was tasked with leading 600,000 slaves out of Egypt.

“He was a man of great passion, a great leader and a liberator, but he was somebody who also had incredible doubts and insecurities,” Bale told Reuters. “I think that makes it so much more fascinating than I had ever realized. And also, in doing that, we are telling it in a new way.”

Scott shot the film in the Canary Islands and Pinewood Studios in England in just 74 days, and while most actors would struggle with that tight schedule, Bale said he found the challenge to be exhilarating.

“For me it feels like I’m most productive, most creative when there is a momentum to the way you shoot. Otherwise, you get lethargic. And [Scott] can do that in a way that is more akin to the soul of an independent film, even though this is a vast, big studio film.”

In early reviews, Variety praised Exodus as “a genuinely imposing spectacle.” The Hollywood Reporter commended Scott, who has earned best director Oscar nominations for Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Thelma & Louise, for putting on “a rousing good show,” but found faults with the beginning and end of the epic drama.