Jim Caviezel no longer playing Jesus in The Resurrection of the Christ
Apparently de-aging the actor proved too great a hurdle to overcome.
This has been quite the week for startling, even disappointing, news about Jim Caviezel-related Bible movies.
First we got word that Zero A.D., a Nativity movie starring Caviezel as King Herod that was going to come out in December, is being bumped to sometime next year to make room for an animated movie about David.
And now comes word that Caviezel himself will not be playing Jesus in The Resurrection of the Christ, the two-part sequel to The Passion of the Christ.
The New York Post’s Page Six broke the news on Thursday, citing two anonymous sources, and it has now been confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter.
This is the key part of the original Page Six story:
Mel Gibson’s long-gestating sequel to “The Passion of the Christ” will start shooting in Rome, but with a completely new cast, an insider told Page Six.
Jim Caviezel won’t return as Jesus, and Monica Bellucci won’t be back as Mary Magdalene in “The Resurrection of the Christ,” we hear.
“They’re [currently] meeting with actors [in Rome],” a source familiar with the project told us.
Another source said they switched it up because “they’d [have had] to do a lot of work with the [original] actors… digital stuff, plus the scheduling.”
“There was a lot of back and forth,” they said, adding the flick has been in pre-production “for a couple of months.”
The main issue seems to have been Caviezel’s age: he was 34 when he played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, and he’s 57 now—but the new film is supposed to take place at the same time as the original film, which ended with Jesus walking out of the tomb.
Mel Gibson had addressed this issue in recent months, saying he had “ways of dealing” with it, like digital de-aging techniques.
But it’s possible that those techniques turned out to be too expensive, especially at the quality and quantity that Gibson needed them. He presumably would have needed to de-age Caviezel throughout the entire two-movie project, and not just in a flashback or an extended prologue like the one in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
It’s also possible that Gibson, who has hinted that the new film will show Jesus fighting the demons in Hell, needed Caviezel to move like a younger man, in ways that a digitally de-aged face couldn’t fix. (Remember all the comments about Robert De Niro moving like an old man when he beat someone up in The Irishman?)
Whatever the reason, it might be just as well that The Resurrection is losing one of its main connections to The Passion of the Christ.
Based on everything Gibson has said about the new film—from Jesus taking the fight to the demons to the cosmic, history-spanning scope of the project and the possibility that it might be filmed in English—it won’t be all that much like The Passion, so he might as well make a clean break and go with a different cast.
Thankfully, a change to the lead actor doesn’t necessarily spell doom, so long as the original director and his vision remain: Mel Gibson himself was replaced by Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road, which came out 30 years after the last Mad Max film that Gibson starred in, and it turned out to be a huge success.
Time will tell if The Resurrection of the Christ can follow a similar path.
The Resurrection of the Christ is coming to theatres in two parts in 2027: Part One on March 26 (Good Friday) and Part Two on May 6 (Ascension Day).
P.S.: I now wonder if Caviezel leaving The Resurrection was one of the reasons Zero A.D. got bumped. Zero A.D. was going to come out in December, and there’s a very good chance The Resurrection will be filming by then. Maybe the makers of Zero A.D. didn’t want their film’s publicity tour to get derailed by all the questions people would ask about the other film—questions that might get awkward answers.
Upcoming Bible movies and TV shows:
now-October 29, 2025 — The Promised Land: Season 1 (streaming: YouTube)
now-November 16, 2025 — House of David: Season 2 (streaming: Prime Video - Wonder Project)
October 17, 2025 — The Chosen Adventures (streaming: Prime Video)
November 14, 2025 — The Carpenter’s Son (theatrical: Magnolia)
November 2025 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 1 (streaming: Fox Nation)
December 19, 2025 — David (theatrical: Angel Studios)
March 22-April 5, 2026 — The Faithful (television: Fox)
April-May 2026 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 2 (streaming: Fox Nation)
second half of 2026 — The Chosen: Season 6: Episodes 1-6 (streaming: Prime Video)
sometime in 2026 — Zero A.D. (theatrical: Angel Studios)
March 12, 2027 — The Chosen: Season 6: Finale (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
March 26, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One (theatrical: Lionsgate)
May 6, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part Two (theatrical: Lionsgate)
March 31, 2028 — The Chosen: Season 7: Premiere (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
no release date specified — Jacob (theatrical: Angel Studios)
no release date specified — Joseph of Egypt (streaming: Prime Video)
who knows when Malick will finish it — The Way of the Wind (theatrical)