Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion of the Christ’ sequel confirmed

Mel Gibson and the cast and crew of ‘Passion of the Christ’ are working on a sequel to be titled ‘Resurrection’.

The 2004 original film was produced on a $30 million budget and grossed $612 million on a $30 million domestically — breaking a record as the highest-grossing R-rated movie in North America, making ‘Passion of the Christ’ among the most successful independent films ever.

The making of the sequel

Film journalist Jordan Ruimy has confirmed that Gibson is already in the process of making ‘The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection’.

“Gibson has been hard at work on the screenplay with Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace,” Ruimy said. “There have already been six drafts.”

Ruimy also relayed what aspects of Jesus’ life the movie will focus on.

“‘Resurrection’ focus[es] on the twenty-four hours encompassing Jesus’ passion and the events that occurred three days between his crucifixion and resurrection,” the journalist said.

The film stars Jim Caviezel, who will reprise the role of Jesus, Maia Morgenstern as Mary, Christo Jivkov as John, and Francesco De Vito as Peter.

The sequel has actually been in the works in Gibson’s mind for years. At a Harvest Crusade in 2016 Gibson told Greg Laurie that he had a vision and didn’t want to rush the process.

“It’s called ‘The Resurrection’,” Gibson said at the time. “Of course, that’s a very big subject and it needs to be looked at because we don’t want to just do a simple rendering of it — you know, read what happened.”

“But in order to read it, experience and explore probably deeper meanings of what it’s about, it’s going to take some doing and Randall Wallace is up to the task,” the ‘Braveheart’ actor illustrated. “He is also, as well as a brilliant writer, he is a great director. He directed ‘We Were Soldiers’ and ‘Heaven is for Real’ and stuff. So, he is a good writer and director.”

Wallace has also been in on the burgeoning project since the early years. Around the time of the 2016 Gibson comments, Wallace told The Hollywood Reporter there was still an important story to tell.

“The evangelical community considers ‘The Passion’ the biggest movie ever out of Hollywood, and they kept telling us that they think a sequel will be even bigger,” the screenwriter said.

“I always wanted to tell this story,” Wallace shared. “‘’The Passion’ is the beginning, and there’s a lot more story to tell.”