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In 2004, The Passion of the Christ became one of the most successful independent movies of all time, earning $612 million on a $30 million budget. Now, Mel Gibson is aiming to do it again with a highly anticipated sequel that is expected to begin production in the coming months. Titled The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection, this new installment will focus on the days immediately following the events of the previous film.
It’s been 20 years since The Passion of the Christ was released, but the film was still able to secure Jim Caviezel in the title role. According to IMDB, several other actors are reprising their roles as well, including Maia Morgenstern (Mary), Francesco De Vito (Peter), and Christo Jivcov (John). Mel Gibson will serve as director and co-writer, but he is joined this time by Randall Wallace, who is known for writing the screenplay for Braveheart.
The film has been in development for more than 10 years. In 2016, the Christian Post reported that Gibson commented on a Passion sequel during an interview regarding his 2016 hit Hacksaw Ridge, which won two Oscars and was nominated for four more. Gibson noted that there was a lot of work to be done, but he was very confident that the movie would be made:
“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. 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.”
While it’s heartening to know that the film is in pre-production, it will likely be a long wait until it hits theaters. The filming is expected to begin in late spring and could last for a full year. On top of that, it has to deal with continuing delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made production studios very slow to work through their backlogs. While nothing has been confirmed as of yet, we don’t expect The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection to release before 2024 and possibly even later.
And today we celebrate...