Passion Of The Christ II, which will be called The Resurrection Of The Christ, still does not have a fully confirmed start date. The long-awaited sequel to director Mel Gibson’s biblical epic has been in development for years.
Previous start dates were not hit. Now, during an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience as part of the press activity for his movie Flight Risk, Gibson confirmed it is still in his plans and he aims to shoot sometime in 2026.
“I don’t have a start date. I just have to begin pre-production and see what happens. It’s just going to roll in its own time. It’s taking its own time. I thought it was late. It’s taking too long. It’s taking too long. But it’s probably just right. It’s when it’s supposed to be.”
Jim Caviezel will return as Jesus and, as the title suggests, it will tell the story following the crucifixion. In the past, Gibson has referred to the story as featuring Jesus travelling through other realms. Is this the Nick Cave Gladiator sequel, Jesus-style?
The 2004 original was controversial at the time. It was banned in Malaysia for anyone but Christian audiences, who had to register at special theaters to view it.
Slate magazine’s David Edelstein called it “a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie” and Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News felt it was “the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II”.
Writing for the Dallas Observer, Robert Wilonsky stated that he found the movie “too turgid to awe the nonbelievers, too zealous to inspire and often too silly to take seriously, with its demonic hallucinations that look like escapees from a David Lynch film; I swear I couldn’t find the devil carrying around a hairy-backed midget anywhere in the text I read.”
The original, or rather the furor around it, was lampooned by South Park in the episode The Passion of the Jew in the 8th season on March 31, 2004.
The script has undergone multiple revisions with both Gibson and screenwriter Randall Wallace writing. The script was finished last summer.