Don't call it a comeback – having had his name thrown in the dirt and being linked with that French girl from Amelie, Jesus wants to tell his side of the story, and has signed up to star in a new movie called The Resurrection.
OK, maybe The Resurrection won't actually star Jesus – his extensive entourage is said to be off-putting to budget-conscious studios – but The Resurrection will be about Jesus, and the 40-day period between the time when he died and the time where he jumped on a cloud, waggled his bum at the Romans and floated on up to heaven.
Jesus has had a pretty tough time of it lately. Most obviously, The Da Vinci Code seems to have been created solely to tick off all kinds of Catholics, all incensed by the insinuation that Jesus had it off with a prostitute and created a bloodline that goes all the way down to the pretty French Amelie girl, and even more incensed that a man with hair as crap as Tom Hanks would figure it all out so quickly.
And also, The Passion Of The Christ – though apparently as accurate as scary bearded fundamentalist Mel Gibson could get it – wasn't the most flattering of films. If a film got made about us dying, we wouldn't like the world to see us covered in blood and screaming in a language nobody even understands. And that's just us, so just imagine how narked Jesus must be about the whole affair.
So Jesus must be hoping that a new film being made about him entitled The Resurrection casts him in a bit of a better light. Sony's Screen Gems division commissioned a script a few months ago that deliberately continues almost seamlessly from The Passion Of The Christ, with Jesus' empty cross. The Resurrection is being written by Lionel
Chetwynd – who has previously written nothing we've ever heard of including lots of stuff about guns, the Bible and aeroplanes – and will be produced by Tim LaHaye, who we've never heard of either. According to Reuters, The Resurrection – set for an Easter release, funnily enough – will be about:
According to the Bible, women who visited the tomb of Jesus
Christ three days after his crucifixion found it empty, and his
disciples and other acquaintances, including Mary Magdalene,
encountered him postresurrection on various occasions during a
40-day period. The film will focus on these dramatic encounters and their
implications for the Roman garrison in Judea and the broader
Roman Empire, insiders said. "This is not a fanciful rendering. It's a serious attempt
to understand the Roman world in which Christ moved and the
Christian era was born," a person familiar with the project
said.
So it looks like Jesus will get his wish – The Resurrection will be an accurate and sober retelling of the story designed to inform and educate. And, of course, if The Resurrection just somehow happens to 'do a Passion' and make hundreds of millions of dollars, well that's just a nice bonus. Right?
Read more:
Sony aiming for Easter box office "resurrection" – Reuters
[story by Stuart Heritage]