Ben Madilynn
January 11, 2025 | 4:16pm
— American filmmaker Mel Gibson is eyeing to begin shooting his sequel to “The Passion of the Christ” sometime next year.
Gibson was a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast to promote his new movie “Flight Risk,” his first directorial feature since 2016’s “Hacksaw Ridge” where he received his second Best Director nomination.
He described the script for “The Resurrection of the Christ” that he, his brother Donal, and “Braveheart” screenwriter Randall Wallace wrote for the past seven years as an “acid trip.”
“I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which means you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go to hell,” Gibson said.
The filmmaker shared his intention to re-cast Jim Caviezel as Jesus, adding that “a few techniques” would be needed to de-age the 56-year-old actor.
He further described it as “very ambitious,” where the story moves from “the fall of the angels to the death of the last apostle,” the latter being John the Evangelist.
“I think I have ideas about how how to evoke things and emotions in people from the way you depict it and the way you shoot it,” Gibson said. “It’s not going to be easy and it’s going to require a lot of planning and I’m not wholly sure I can pull it off to tell you the truth, it’s super ambitious. But I’ll take a crack at it because that’s what you got to do, right, walk up to the plate, right?”
Related: Documentary ‘Eraserheads: Combo On The Run’ to hit theaters this March
The director later revealed that his Los Angeles home burned down in the raging wildfires while he was in Texas guesting on the podcast.
“The good news is that those in my family and those I love are all well, and we’re all happy and healthy and out of harm’s way. That’s all I can care about, really,” he said.
Gibson has already been scouting filming locations for “The Resurrection of the Christ,” having visited Malta and the Italian region of Puglia.
“The Passion of the Christ,” starring Caviezel, followed the last 12 hours of Jesus — from the Agony in the Garden to his Crucifixion — interspersed with other key moments in his life, briefly ending with his Resurrection.
With $612 million (P36.1 billion) at the global box office, it is the highest-grossing Christian film of all time (unadjusted for inflation) and remains the highest-grossing independent film ever as it was distributed by Newmarket Films.
Despite being controversial and polarizing for some viewers, it received Oscar nominations for its makeup, cinematography, and score, and still receives praises from annual screenings.
