Lionsgate Announces That Mel Gibson's 'The Resurrection Of The Christ' Will Be Split Into Two Parts
Lionsgate announced that Mel Gibson’s upcoming sequel to The Passion of the Christ, The Resurrection of the Christ, will be split in two parts.
The company shared that Part One will release on Good Friday on March 26, 202. The second part will arrive on Ascension Day on May 6, 2027.
It was reported in March that Gibson and his Icon Productions would begin shooting the film in Italy in August. Rome’s Cinecittà Studios CEO Manuela Cacciamani said in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore, “I can confirm that the next film directed by Mel Gibson, produced by Icon Productions, The Resurrection of Christ, will be entirely shot in Cinecittà starting in August and needs many theaters and stage constructions.”
As for what to expect from the film, Gibson told Stephen Colbert in 2016, “It’s more than a single event. It’s an amazing event. And to underpin it with the things around it is really the story, to sort of enlighten what that means.”
“It’s not just about the event,” he continued. “It’s not some kind of chronological telling of just that event. That could be boring and you think, ‘Well, we’ve read that.'”
He elaborated, “It’s predictable in that, okay, now we know what happens. Then this happens, then this happens, and this happens. But what are the other things around it that happen?”
Gibson continued, “You’re going all over the place. What happened in three days?” He then hinted that he might explore Christ’s descent into hell, “I’m not sure, but it’s worth thinking about, isn’t it. Get your imagination going, right?”
Earlier this year, Gibson provided more details in an interview with Joe Rogan.
First, he confirmed that Caviezel will reprise his role as Jesus Christ, “You use him, again.”
Rogan then interjected, “Caviezel.”
Gibson confirmed, “I know it’s 20 years later. It’s supposed to be three days later, but he got 20 years older. I think I have to use a few techniques that they’ve started to get really good… You can actually get some of the same people.”
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“There’s a lot required because it’s an acid trip,” Gibson said. “When we wrote it, it is like-. I’ve never read anything like it. My brother and I and Randall [Wallace] all sort of congregated on this. So there’s some good heads put together, but there’s some crazy stuff. And I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which is you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go Hell. You need to go to Sheol.”
Rogan then asked, “So you’re going to have Hell? You’re going to have Satan all that?”
Gibson responded, “Yeah. Sure. You got to have his origin.”
When asked how he would depict, he said, “This is a good question and I think I have ideas about how to do that and ideas about how to evoke things and emotions in people from the way you depict it and the way you shoot it. So I’ve been thinking about it for a long term. It’s not going to be easy and it’s going to require a lot of planning and I’m not wholly sure I can pull it off to tell you the truth, it’s really super ambitious. But I’ll take a crack at it. ‘Cause that’s what you got to do, right, walk up to the plate, right?”
“I think I can get it,” he added. “But it’s not about me. It’s about something else.”
Gibson later stated, “It’s about trying to find the way in that’s not like cheesy or obvious, but actually-. It’s almost like a magic trick in a sense. It’s diversion. It’s obfuscate this, show that. Look over here.”
He then shared, “It’s very ambitious. That’s all I’ll say. It took a long time to write. It’s really ambitious and it goes from the fall of the angels to the death of the last Apostle.”
Will you be seeing the Resurrection of the Christ?
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Yes. This is one I will see.
I won't go to the theater for it, but will order it on DVD.
Every few years, something comes along and I pull the dust cover off the TV. I don't even remember what my TV looks like.
I hope it goes well and that God will speak through the film. I'm not going to take it too literally, but I think it will be poetically interesting and have a truthful core.