Lionsgate to co-produce Mel Gibson's The Resurrection of the Christ
It's the studio's latest foray into the faith-based genre, following hits like The Shack and Jesus Revolution.
Looks like cameras really will start rolling on the sequel to The Passion of the Christ this summer. Deadline reports that Lionsgate, the studio behind the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises, is teaming up with co-writer/director Mel Gibson to produce The Resurrection of the Christ, which will start shooting later this year.
This would be Gibson’s third directorial effort with Lionsgate, following the Oscar-nominated war movie Hacksaw Ridge and the action thriller Flight Risk.
It would also be the latest in a series of “faith-based” projects at Lionsgate:
In 2017, they produced The Shack, one of the very few faith-based films to make a big chunk of its money overseas. (It is still the 3rd-highest-grossing faith-based film worldwide, behind The Passion and Heaven is for Real.)1
In 2018, they partnered with Roadside Attractions to distribute I Can Only Imagine, a Christian-music biopic that quickly became the 3rd-highest-grossing faith-based film in North America (a position it still holds).
In 2019, they partnered with Kingdom Story, a studio co-founded by I Can Only Imagine directors Jon and Andrew Erwin, to produce and distribute faith-based films; their biggest successes to date under that arrangement have been 2023’s Jesus Revolution and last year’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
In 2023, they acquired worldwide distribution rights to The Chosen; they helped broker the show’s recent streaming deal with Prime Video, for example.
And now they’re producing The Resurrection of the Christ.
There are no official details about the cast or plot yet, but Gibson has dropped quite a few hints about the film over the past decade or so. A quick timeline:
June 9, 2016 — Randall Wallace, who wrote Braveheart for Gibson and directed him in We Were Soldiers, confirms then-recent rumours that he and Gibson are working on a sequel to The Passion of the Christ.
August 28, 2016 — Gibson talks about the sequel with Greg Laurie at the SoCal Harvest event. These might be his first public comments confirming that the film was in development.
September 6, 2016 — Gibson tells Deadline the film might jump back and forth between the Old and New Testaments.
November 2, 2016 — Gibson tells Stephen Colbert the film might depict Jesus defeating the demons in “another realm” while his body is in the tomb.
November 4, 2016 — Gibson tells Raymond Arroyo the film will be “a big, vast, theological experience” that could depict “the fall of the angels” and tackle questions like “why didn’t [the disciples] recognize [Jesus] on the way to Emmaus”. He also says the film will be “like an acid trip.”
September 10, 2020 — Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ and is expected to play him again in The Resurrection of the Christ, tells Brietbart News he just got the “third draft” of the script for the sequel.
September 19, 2024 — Reports surface that Gibson has been scouting locations for the sequel to The Passion in Italy.
September 25, 2024 — Gibson tells ComicBook he has “ways of dealing” with the fact that Caviezel is over 20 years older now than he was in The Passion.
January 9, 2025 — Gibson tells Joe Rogan he might shoot the sequel “next year”, and he reiterates that it will be a non-linear “acid trip” that goes from “the fall of the angels to the death of the last apostle.” He also says he might shoot the sequel in English (instead of Latin and Aramaic, the languages The Passion was filmed in).
March 26, 2025 — Cinecittà CEO Manuela Cacciamani tells an Italian newspaper The Resurrection of the Christ will start filming in her Rome-based studio in August.
And now, this week, Lionsgate has come on board to help produce the film.
One last note: Jim Caviezel is currently 56 and will be turning 57 in September, when the film might very well still be in production.
The only other actors who have played Jesus in their 50s, that I know of, are:
H.B. Warner, The King of Kings — was 50 when the film came out in 1927
Bruce Marchiano — was 59 when My Son, My Savior came out in 2015
Marchiano had played Jesus many times since starring in The Visual Bible in his mid-30s, and he went on to play a modern version of Jesus in a series called The Encounter that aired its last episode when he was 64.
Jonathan Roumie, The Chosen — currently 50, still has two seasons to go
So, Caviezel would certainly be one of the oldest actors to play Jesus in a first-century setting, but not quite the oldest, if the film is completed before Caviezel turns 59.
Finally, we have an official image from the film! (…sort of.) Lionsgate announced the film on Twitter yesterday, with an animated version of the following logo:
If the film really is filming in August, that’s only three months away. So I assume there will be official casting announcements in the near future, etc. Stay tuned.
Update: Lionsgate also posted the animated logo to their YouTube channel:
The top 25 faith-based films that I know of worldwide; the Lionsgate titles are in bold (all figures are from Box Office Mojo):
