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Netflix Religious Drama Come Sunday Eyeing Chiwetel Ejiofor

Chiwetel Ejiofor, star of The Martian and soon Doctor Strange, is circling Netflix religious drama Come Sunday, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Chiwetel Ejiofor

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Rarely a day goes by that we don’t catch wind of a Netflix feature film gaining momentum – or, in the case of the company’s planned Panama Papers drama, setting up shop.

Today, it is Joshua Marston’s (Maria Full of Grace) religious drama Come Sunday that has found itself in the headlines, with The Hollywood Reporter revealing that Chiwetel Ejiofor, star of The Martian and soon Doctor Strange, is circling the role of an evangelical minister.

Negotiations are still ongoing at the time of going to press, so this isn’t necessarily a done deal yet. But should a deal place, Ejiofor would star opposite Robert Redford in the drama, one that “chronicles the story of Carlton Pearson (Ejiofor), a renowned evangelical minister in Tulsa, Okla., who stirs up controversy with his revelation that there is no hell. He loses everything and must rebuild his church and his family and find his own personal faith.”

Spun out from an episode of This American Life from 2005, THR notes that Marcus Hinchey (All Good Things) penned the script, which has been teetering on the fringes of development for close to five years. In 2010, for instance, Endgame Entertainment was fostering the drama then known as Heretics for a potential directing gig for Marc Forster. That ultimately fell through, though we understand that Forster remains attached as executive producer as Come Sunday gears up for a production start in January of 2017.

Doctor Strange, meanwhile, opens on November 4.