The widely awaited sequel to “Passion of the Christ” is apparently slated to begin filming in the next months, with Mel Gibson working on many revisions of the screenplay.
For over a decade, the 67-year-old actor, director, and producer has apparently been working on “The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection,” a sequel to the 2004 Gibson blockbuster.
“Gibson has been hard at work on the screenplay with ‘Braveheart’ screenwriter Randall Wallace,” Veteran film journalist Jordan Ruimy shared.
“There have already been six drafts,” Ruimy added. “‘Resurrection’ would focus on the twenty-four hours encompassing Jesus’ passion and the events that occurred three days between his crucifixion and resurrection.”
According to the site, Jim Caviezel will reprise his role as Jesus with many other original cast members including Maia Morgenstern as Mary, Christo Jivkov as John, and Francesco De Vito as Peter.
Wallace stated in 2016 that the “evangelical community believes The Passion to be the largest movie ever to come out of Hollywood, and they continued telling us that they believe a sequel will be even greater.”
“I always wanted to tell this story … The Passion is the beginning, and there’s a lot more story to tell,” he added.
Gibson previously discussed how large the subject was and stated that it would take time to convey the tale, according to the Christian Post.
It’s called The Resurrection,” the superstar shared at the time. “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.”
“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,” he added. “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.”
The 2004 picture was classified R and was a big hit, grossing more than $600 million on a $30 million budget.