Newsbites: Resurrection! Chosen! Way of the Wind! Ruth & Boaz! David!
The sequel to The Passion of the Christ announces its lead actors; The Chosen goes back to "the creation of the universe"; Terrence Malick's Jesus movie records a voice-over; and more.
The Resurrection of the Christ starts shooting, announces its cast
Mere days after news broke that Mel Gibson won’t be using the same actors on The Resurrection of the Christ that he used on The Passion of the Christ, we now know who some of the key cast members are. Variety reports that the film started shooting last week—and it reports that the following actors are playing the lead roles:
Jaakko Ohtonen (The Last Kingdom, Vikings: Valhalla) — Jesus
Mariela Garriga (Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning) — Mary Magdalene
Kasia Smutniak (Dolittle, From Paris with Love) — Mother Mary
Smutniak starred in Domina as Livia Drusilla, the wife of Caesar Augustus. As far as I know, there are no biblical plot elements in this series, but Augustus and his adopted son/successor Tiberius are mentioned in the Bible…
She also starred in 2010’s La passione, a film about a village’s passion play.
Pier Luigi Pasino (The Law According to Lidia Poët) — Peter
Pasino played the Dove Seller Helper in 2016’s The Young Messiah.
Riccardo Scamarcio (A Haunting in Venice, John Wick: Chapter 2) — Pontius Pilate
As far as I can tell, Scamarcio has never appeared in a Bible film (or even in a Bible film-within-a-film), but he did play Ninetto Davoli—an actor who appeared in several Pier Paolo Pasolini films including 1964’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew—in Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini (2014).
Rupert Everett (My Best Friend’s Wedding, Cemetery Man) — undisclosed role
Everett played Caiaphas in Judas’ Gospel, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival last August.
Coincidentally (or not), the same day it was announced who The Resurrection’s new actors will be, it was also announced that Jim Caviezel—who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ and had been expected to reprise the role—is going to star in an action film that has a connection to Team Resurrection: he’s going to be the lead in Archangel, a movie written by Chris Papasadero and Randall Wallace, the latter of whom has (co-)written several films for Mel Gibson including The Resurrection of the Christ.
Archangel is reportedly about a Green Beret who designs weapons for “a secret U.S. military agency”. So, the title doesn’t appear to carry any religious significance; it’s probably just a code name like the one in 2019’s Angel Has Fallen, an action flick about a secret service agent who is framed for an assassination attempt.
Sony plans to release Archangel on November 6, 2026—four and a half months before The Resurrection of the Christ Part One comes out on March 26, 2027.
Is The Chosen Season 6 going all the way back to Creation?
The Chosen has lots of flashbacks to the Old Testament; in Season 5 they bordered on outright time travel.1 Now series creator Dallas Jenkins has given an interview in which he seems to indicate that Season 6 will go back to the beginning of time itself.
Asked by The Christian Chronicle how The Chosen’s depiction of the Crucifixion will differ from The Passion of the Christ’s, he said (emphasis added):
“There are two ways that I think we’re going to be different.
“Number one, we have more tools in our toolbelt than Mel Gibson did, by the fact that we have five seasons leading up to this. So he was using a lot of violence and visual intensity to try to capture the reality of the Crucifixion and the weight of the Crucifixion. But it was a movie, so he only had a limited amount of time.
“So we don’t need to do that to communicate just how visceral and intense a crucifixion was. Because for many people, just a simple reaction from one of Jesus’ closest friends is going to break us because we’ve known these characters for so long. So, it has more emotional weight because of the backstories that we’ve had for over five years.
“The second thing is, it’s not going to be quite as explicitly violent. Mel did it already. I don’t feel like I have anything new to add to the physicality of it. We’ve seen dozens of portrayals. Mel’s was the most violent. I think we’ve got an idea of what that looks like.
“I think for this storytelling that we’re doing, we’re trying to tell a story not just of the Crucifixion but of the history of humanity. This movie is going to cover and remind you of the history from the creation of the universe all the way to the Crucifixion — to help establish the need for the Crucifixion.
“So we’re coming at it, I think, from a little bit more of an emotional journey and a spiritual journey than a physical one.”
A few quick thoughts:
Jenkins has nudged in this direction before; in a livestream last August, he said the Season 6 finale will portray “not only the crucifixion itself, but the need for the crucifixion—the history of humanity that shows why the crucifixion took place, and what the crucifixion was in response to.” Now he’s going even further, beyond the history of humanity to the origin of “the universe” itself.
The Chosen has never shown the creation of the universe before, but Jesus did call it “a favorite memory” in Season 2 Episode 1. I wonder if the Season 6 finale will refer to that line at all. Maybe it will show Jesus himself taking part in the creation of the world. Maybe he’ll be the one “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” just after Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3:8).
As I said last August, it will be interesting to see how this film’s broader approach to the story—the way it sets the Crucifixion within a bigger cosmic narrative—compares to the broader approach of The Resurrection of the Christ, which is coming to theatres mere weeks after The Chosen’s Season 6 finale. Jenkins says he’s telling “the story of humanity”, and Gibson says his film will cover “the fall of the angels to the death of the last apostle.” Hmmm.
It’s striking to me how Jesus movies have suddenly become a lot more theological in their telling of the Jesus story. It used to be that they followed the narrative in the gospels and let the viewer interpret it how they will. But now? This year, The King of Kings and Light of the World both explicitly tied the death of Jesus to the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And now it sounds like Jenkins and Gibson are going to do something similar in their own films.
We’ll get to compare the films soon enough. The Chosen’s Season 6 finale is coming to theatres worldwide on March 12, 2027—and The Resurrection of the Christ will come to theatres in two parts a few weeks later, on March 26 and May 6.
The Way of the Wind actor reportedly recording his voice-over now
It’s been a while since we last heard any rumours about The Way of the Wind, the Terrence Malick Jesus movie that was filmed in 2019 and has been stuck in the editing room ever since. Now comes word, via Jordan Ruimy, that one of the key actors is recording a voice-over for the film (Malick does love his voice-overs…):
The latest update is coming in from L.A. —I was recently told that Matthias Schoenaerts, who plays [Peter], is currently recording the film’s voice-over. No word yet on whether the film will even use Schoenaerts’ voice work, but at least there’s movement on this thing.
Make of that what you will.
Incidentally, the last time I wrote about this film (back in May), I posted a poll asking readers to predict which Jesus movie (or show) would be finished first: The Chosen Season 7 finale, The Resurrection of the Christ, or The Way of the Wind. (This was before release dates had been announced for any of these projects.)
The readers who voted basically went with The Chosen or The Way of the Wind:
Interestingly, we now know that The Resurrection of the Christ, the film that got the fewest votes, will actually be coming out before one of the other two films: it’s coming out in 2027, while The Chosen Season 7 is coming out one year later, in 2028.
But that still leaves The Way of the Wind. Could it beat Mel Gibson to the punch? Possibly: Gibson’s film is still a year and a half away, and if The Way of the Wind is at the voice-over-recording stage, that might mean it’s almost finished. Might.
As ever, we shall see.
Ruth & Boaz drops to #7 on Netflix in its third week
Ruth & Boaz was one of the top ten movies on Netflix for a third consecutive week.
The film, a modernization of the book of Ruth produced by Tyler Perry and DeVon Franklin, got 4.1 million views worldwide in the week of October 6-12. That was enough to land it in the #7 spot, after two weeks at #2.
Interestingly, the film, which sets the biblical story in Georgia and Tennessee, made the top ten in 32 countries but not in the United States. Most of the countries where it made the list were in Europe or the Caribbean.
The film has had 28.5 million views in total since premiering September 26.
It’s not clear how that compares to Mary, a Nativity movie that fell off the top ten in its third week last year (it got 24.6 million views in its first two weeks, and another 7.2 million views in the two weeks and two days that followed), but it’s better than the 21.3 million views that the docu-series Testament: The Story of Moses got in its first three weeks, also last year.
Angel Studios wants a million kids to see David for free
The animated David doesn’t have a trailer yet, but we’ve got some more footage now, featuring characters we haven’t seen before.
Angel Studios CEO Neal Harmon released a video last Friday asking people to “pay it forward” by buying tickets that can be given to children (and others) for free when the movie opens December 19. Along the way, the video shows Samuel anointing David, a close-up of Goliath’s foot, and other things I don’t believe we’ve seen before.
You can watch the video below:
Previous videos for David:
The demo video (October 24, 2021)
A one-minute clip (August 31, 2025; starts at the 55:53 mark)
The ‘Follow the Light’ music clip (October 9, 2025)
Plus see my posts on the Young David series: episodes one, two, three, four, five.
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)
I’m thinking especially of the scene in S5E8 where Jesus is praying in Gethsemane and he finds himself walking in the valley of dry bones and speaking to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37).