Nicolas Cage to star as Joseph in a horror movie about Jesus' younger years

The Carpenter's Son is reportedly inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

Nicolas Cage in Season of the Witch (2011), which is about as close as I could come to finding a pre-modern supernatural story with Cage in the lead.

Well this made my day. Deadline reports that Nicolas Cage is going to play Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, in a horror movie about the teenaged Jesus:

Nicolas Cage, FKA twigs, Noah Jupe and Souheila Yacoub are set to star in Egyptian-American director Lotfy Nathan’s The Carpenter’s Son exploring the rarely told story of the childhood of Jesus with a horror take. . . .

Nathan has taken inspiration from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas for the screenplay. Dating back to the 2nd Century AD, the text recounts the childhood of Jesus.

Per the official synopsis, “The Carpenter’s Son tells the dark story of a family hiding out in Roman Egypt. The son, known only as ‘the Boy’, is driven to doubt by another mysterious child and rebels against his guardian, the Carpenter, revealing inherent powers and a fate beyond his comprehension. As he exercises his own power, the Boy and his family become the target of horrors, natural and divine.”

Cage is playing the Carpenter (i.e. the Joseph figure), FKA twigs is playing the Mother (i.e. the Mary figure), and 19-year-old Jupe is playing the Boy (i.e. the Jesus figure).

Deadline does not say who Yacoub is playing, but she turns 32 next month and that makes me think she can’t be playing the “mysterious child”. (Then again, if 36-year-old Shirley Henderson could play Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films…)

The film is scheduled to shoot this summer.

A few quick thoughts about this news: