Steven Spielberg is one of the busiest men working in Hollywood, and one of the best-known directors in the world. He has three Academy Awards to his name, as well as a further seven nominations, and an eighth nomination that arrived earlier this week that could turn into his fourth Oscar if War Horse wins Best Picture next month.

So as you can imagine, when Warner Bros. started courting Spielberg for their epic biopic of Moses (and I do indeed mean ‘epic’ in the biblical sense), Gods And Kings, it seemed like a bit of a long shot. Deadline are now reporting, however, that the director is close to officially signing on board, with word expected to come by the end of the month on his final decision.

According to Deadline’s sources, Gods And Kings will be,

“a movie like a Braveheart-ish version of the Moses story,” an insider tells us. “Him coming down the river, being adopted, leaving his home, forming an army, and getting the Ten Commandments.”

And in case anyone’s concerned (or possibly hopeful, but I’d imagine that’s less likely), they are specifically not looking to do this in 3D. The biblical epic is something Hollywood is of course familiar with, and one of the biggest of them, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, also took on this story for the big screen. And earned $65m. for its effort, which is close to the $1bn.-mark adjusted for inflation.

This adaptation, though, will be,

“as far from a remake of the Cecile B. DeMille-directed epic as you can get even though they cover similar ground. Instead Warner Bros wants Spielberg to direct it with the gritty reality of Saving Private Ryan, which is considered a masterpiece redefining battle movies. ”There have been glossy versions of the Moses story but this would be a real warrior story,” an insider tells us.”

And, as you can imagine, that’s what has me really interested. And I’d imagine that it will interest a lot of other people, too. A gritty warrior story directed by Spielberg, à la Saving Private Ryan, sounds like a sure-fire immense success, both critically and commercially.

The script is being written by Stuart Hazeldine (the upcoming Paradise Lost adaptation of Milton’s epic poem – clearly epic is Hazeldine’s skill) and Michael Green (co-writer of Green Lantern).

Spielberg’s next film, Lincoln, has just been finished and is due out in December this year, making it a prime candidate for next year’s Oscars.  and he’s already moving on to do Robopocalypse, which you can read more about here.

So Gods And Kings will have to wait a little bit for Spielberg’s schedule to be empty. But it looks as though that could be relatively soon, with Warner Bros. hoping for production to start in March/April 2013. With news expected by the end of the month on Spielberg’s decision, we should have more news to bring you very soon, so watch this space.