The highly-anticipated The Passion of the Christ sequel is scheduled to begin filming in the New Year.
That’s according to Christian actor Jim Caviezel who portrayed Jesus Christ in the original movie and will so do again in the sequel 20-years later. Several other actors who appeared in the original will also star again.
The sequel titled The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection has been in the development stages for the last 10 years. Mel Gibson will be the producer, director and co-writer with Randall Wallace who wrote Braveheart. They’ve reportedly been six drafts written already. The sequel is expected to cover what happened on the three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection and then on resurrection day.
“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,” Mel Gibson explained to Greg Laurie in 2016. “In order to read it, experience and explore probably deeper meanings of what it’s about, it’s going to take some doing,” the director conceded at the time.
CBN News quotes Jim Caviezel as saying the sequel could be split into two, or even three, separate films. He says Mel Gibson’s been working on it for a long, long time and “it will be the biggest film in history.”
It’s unclear if the actors’ and writers’ strike will have an impact on its production. More than 100 independent projects are currently being filmed because they don’t involve the major Hollywood studios. They refused to finance The Passion of the Christ, so Mel Gibson arranged the funding and marketing himself. The movie earned nearly one billion Australian dollars for an investment of A$45 million.
