Actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson is about to start production on one of the most anticipated sequels of all time.
"Resurrection," the sequel to Gibson's masterpiece The Passion of the Christ, has been rumored for years. Now, it's about to become reality.
Veteran film journalist Jordan Ruimy shared Wednesday that Gibson will begin filming The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection in the next few months.
"Gibson has been hard at work on the screenplay with Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace. There have already been six drafts. 'Resurrection' would focus on the twenty-four hours encompassing Jesus' passion and the events that occurred three days between his crucifixion and resurrection," Ruimy explained.
This sounds like a really interesting perspective for the movie, the time between Jesus' death and resurrection.
Those had to be a LONG three days for the disciples. It'll be interesting to see how Gibson portrays everything going on during that time.
The cast will star Jim Caviezel who will reprise the role of Jesus, Maia Morgenstern as Mary, Christo Jivkov as John, and Francesco De Vito as Peter.
The highly-anticipated sequel has been in the development stages for the last 10 years. In 2016, Gibson told Greg Laurie at a Harvest Crusade that he wanted to take his time in developing the story.
"It's called The Resurrection. Of course, that's a very big subject and it needs to be looked at because we don't want to just do a simple rendering of it — you know, read what happened," Gibson explained.
"But in order to read it, experience and explore probably deeper meanings of what it's about, it's going to take some doing and Randall Wallace is up to the task," Gibson continued. "He is also, as well as a brilliant writer, he is a great director. He directed We Were Soldiers and Heaven is for Real and stuff. So, he is a good writer and director."
Given how excellent The Passion of the Christ was, and considering the pedigrees of those involved in the upcoming movie, there's high expectations for the film.
Wallace told The Hollywood Reporter during that time that he has always wanted to tell this story.
"The evangelical community considers 'The Passion' the biggest movie ever out of Hollywood, and they kept telling us that they think a sequel will be even bigger," he said.
"I always wanted to tell this story," Wallace added. "'The Passion' is the beginning, and there's a lot more story to tell."
This is true. Christians believe that Christ's death and resurrection was the focal point of all history – that it broke the chains of sin and made a way for us to be with God where there was no way due to our fallen nature.
Of course, many directors have tried to portray the life of Christ and have stumbled into hardcore heresies by trying to tell more of the story with artistic license. Hopefully, good ol' Mel will stick to what the Bible says (although there's not much content that describes what happened in the three days before Christ's resurrection except that the disciples were hiding in their homes, so I have some worries about what kind of action-packed drama Gibson is going to add).
The original film made $612 Million on a $30 million budget making it the highest-grossing R-rated film in North America and one of the most successful independent films of all time.
IMBD has the release date set for 2024, although no official date has been given.
