Mel Gibson gives new plot details about his resurrection film, hopes to begin shooting next year

Mel Gibson shared an update on his Resurrection movie and shared his hope to begin filming sometime next year.

During an appearance at the Joe Rogan Experience, Gibson first confirmed that Jim Caviezel will reprise his role as Jesus, “You’re using him again.” Rogan then interjected, “Caviezel.” Gibson confirmed: “I know it’s 20 years later. It was supposed to be three days later, but he got 20 years older. I think I’m going to use a few techniques that they’re starting to get really good… You can actually get some of the same people.”

When asked when he would start filming, Gibson replied, “I hope sometime next year. It’s going to take a lot because it’s an acid trip. When we wrote it, it’s like—. I’ve never read anything like .”

“My brother and I and Randall (Wallace) kind of came together on this. So there’s some good heads together, but there’s some crazy stuff,” he continued. “And I think to really tell the story properly, you really have to start with the fall of the angels, which is that you’re in a different place, you’re in a different realm. You must go to hell. You are going to Sheol.”

READ: Sylvester Stallone explains how ‘Rocky’ is a Christian film

Rogan then asked, “So you want Hell? You want Satan all that?”

Gibson replied, “Yeah. Sure. You need his origin.”

When asked how he would portray, he said: “This is a good question and I think I have ideas of how to do it and ideas of how to bring out things and feelings in people from the way you portray it and the way you shoot it.. So I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and it’s going to take a lot of planning and I’m not sure , that I can handle it to tell you the truth, it’s really super ambitious, but I’ll take it, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, step 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 way. It’s diversion. It’s blurry, show it. See here.”

Then he said, “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.”

While he hopes to start shooting next year, he noted that he doesn’t have a start date, “I don’t have a start date. I’m just going to start pre-production and see what happens. It’s just going to roll in its It takes its own time. I thought it was taking too long. But it is.

READ: Megyn Kelly Bashes Focus Features ‘Conclave:’ “I’m Disgusted”

He later shared, “It’s a massive thing. And theologically, it’s something you really have to look at and make connections that match up because it’s not all written.”

“Obviously there’s your own thing that comes into it after you’ve read the book a few times. You read the book a few times and it’s amazing how your memory, how there are these recessive files somewhere in the background, how you can correlate this piece to that piece over there,” he said. “And that’s important because juxtaposition is everything with this story and what it means in a bigger picture.”

“So it’s hard to explain, but it’s pretty involved,” Gibson said.

Gibson has been working on The Resurrection of the Christ since at least 2016, when Randall Wallace narrated The Hollywood Reporter that “he has begun writing a script for a resurrection story and tells THR that the project is becoming too difficult to keep secret.”

Wallace said at the time: “I always wanted to tell this story. The passion is the beginning and there is much more to tell.”

READ: James Woods Blasts California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for LA Fires: “Liberal Idiots”

Gibson would provide more details about the project during an interview with Greg Laurie, revealing that the working title would be The Resurrection.

He said: “Obviously it’s a huge job and it’s not The Passion 2 – it’s called The resurrection.”

Gibson added: “Obviously it’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. We can all read what happened, but to really experience and explore enough deeper meanings of , what it’s about, it’s going to take some doing.”

In November 2016, Gibson gave more information to Stephen Colbert, telling him, “It’s more than a single event. It’s a great event. And to back it up with the stuff around it is really the story, to kind of illuminate what it means.”

“It’s not just about the event,” he continued. “It’s not some sort of chronological account of that particular event. It 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 it happens, then it happens, and it happens. But what are the other things around what happens?”

Gibson continued, “You go 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. Fire up your imagination, won’t you?”

READ: Disney doubles down on vigilantism with gender-swapped ‘Holes’ TV show

In 2020, actor Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus Christ in The Passion of Christ shared that Gibson was on his “fifth draft.”

He also boasted, “It’s going to be a masterpiece. It’s going to be the biggest movie in the history of the world, I think it’s going to be based on what I feel in my heart.”

Furthermore, he emphasized, “It’s so imperative in this day and age. These movies can’t be made now. The movies they’re making are Marvel Comics movies. You want to see Superman. You don’t want to see Jesus… I’m going to play it greatest superhero that ever was.”

What do you think of this new update on The Resurrection of the Christ from Mel Gibson?

NEXT: Amazon MGM Studios drops trailer for ‘A Working Man’ Chuck Dixon’s Levon Cade film adaptation