Newsbites: Scorsese's Jesus! Netflix's Mary! Mel's Passion! Gabriel's teaser!
Two Jesus movies (from Jesus-movie veterans) might not be quite as ready to go as we thought; Netflix buys a Bible movie; and an anime biblical fantasy releases a teaser.
Scorsese postpones his Jesus movie
Martin Scorsese has been talking about making a new Jesus movie for over a year, and he was reportedly going to start shooting it next month—but now comes word that that project is on hold, perhaps indefinitely.
Jordan Ruimy reported on Sunday that Scorsese “seems to have had a change of heart” about the film, and then Variety reported on Tuesday that the film has indeed been postponed, though it is “still in development”.
Time will tell if the film gets made in the end. Scorsese turns 82 in November, and he has a number of other projects in various stages of development vying for his time (though Variety notes that Scorsese’s long-simmering Frank Sinatra biopic, which was going to start shooting after the Jesus movie, has also been put on hold).
Is it safe to assume that Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints—a streaming series about eight Catholic saints, including two from the New Testament (i.e. John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene)—is still on track for a mid-November debut, at least?
Netflix acquires Mary, starring Anthony Hopkins as Herod
Five and a half months ago, I posted a ‘Newsbites’ in which the top two stories were (a) the revelation that a movie about Mary, starring Anthony Hopkins as Herod, had just finished shooting, and (b) the news that Netflix, under the leadership of the openly “religious” Dan Lin, had put someone in charge of “faith-based” films.
Those two stories merged this week when Variety reported that Netflix has acquired Mary and plans to release it later this year (in time for Christmas, no doubt).
This news comes on the heels of a “data dump” which revealed that the Netflix-produced miniseries Testament: The Story of Moses was the 18th-most-viewed season of television in any genre on Netflix during the first six months of this year.
Will Netflix take on any more biblical projects in the near future? Perhaps an ongoing dramatic series, like that House of David thing that Amazon’s got in the works…?
(Wait a minute. I just noticed that the Netflix “data dump” calls Testament: The Story of Moses a “Season 1”, not a “Limited Series” like Baby Reindeer or Griselda. Is Netflix planning more biblical docu-series under the Testament banner…?)
Mel Gibson might not make the Passion sequel quite so soon…?
Mel Gibson may have been scouting locations for the sequel to The Passion of the Christ earlier this month, but apparently he’s not quite sure that that will be his next film. This week he told ComicBook he might direct Lethal Weapon 5 next, instead:
“I don’t know [which is coming first], and that’s the funny thing,” Gibson told ComicBook. “I mean, there’s various obstacles to getting any film up on its feet, and not just budgetary, but there’s like, there’s 1,000,001 reason why something goes and why it doesn’t. So it’s really kind of a crapshoot at this point what goes first and which came first, whether it’s the chicken or the egg.”1
The first four Lethal Weapons starred Gibson and Danny Glover and were directed by Richard Donner between 1987 and 1998. Donner spent years developing a fifth film before passing away in 2021, and Gibson, who became a movie director himself between the third and fourth films (winning an Oscar for Braveheart in 1996), has said that Donner “tasked me with carrying the flag home on this one”.
In a separate article at ComicBook, Gibson also seemed to confirm that Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the original Passion of the Christ, will reprise the role in the new film despite being over 20 years older—and Gibson hinted that he had some idea as to how to deal with Caviezel’s age, though he didn’t get into specifics:
“So it’s like, you know, I have ways of dealing with that, because, you know, twenty years ago is [supposed to be] three days later. So it has its own peculiar set of problems, which I think I can solve.”
Caviezel’s appearance was already somewhat altered in the original film, thanks to a prosthetic nose and digitally-coloured pupils, so this wouldn’t be the first time Gibson has played with Caviezel’s looks. As the good folks at ComicBook note, though, the sequel will need a much larger budget if it goes for digital de-aging.
Gabriel and the Guardians gets a teaser
Angel Studios has released a new teaser for Gabriel and the Guardians, the anime take on the early chapters of Genesis (with a healthy dose of the book of Enoch) that is coming out next year.
This is how the blurb under the teaser describes the show at YouTube:
Gabriel and the Guardians is an anime-inspired fantasy series where Gabriel, a celestial guardian, is thrust into the dark world of Ara to recover the stolen Eternal Seed that holds the power to unmake creation. Joined by a giant hunter from Bekorah and a fierce alchemist princess from Qayinara, they must brave untold dangers, confront ancient evils, and unravel the secrets that could reshape their world. Along the way, these heroes will discover their true identities and eternal destinies. They will forge a path of light through the chaos in a saga of courage, hope, and adventure.
As of a year ago, the series’ voice cast included Johnny Yong Bosch (Power Rangers) as Gabriel, Matt Lanter (The Clone Wars’ Anakin Skywalker) as Nok, Cristina Vee (Miraculous) as Namay’ah, James Arnold Taylor (The Clone Wars’ Obi-Wan Kenobi) as the main antagonist Malachros, and Cristina Milizia (League of Legends) as Zion.
You can watch the teaser below, and sign up for updates about the series here.
“Whether it’s the chicken or the egg” is a weird way to put it, as the whole point behind the metaphor is that chickens make eggs and eggs become chickens, and I don’t think anyone is suggesting that Lethal Weapon 5 is begetting The Passion of the Christ 2 or vice versa. But anyhoo.