Any movie based on a beloved book with a massive built-in audience that made over $600 million at the box office would instantly have the studio heads rubbing their hands in glee with dollar signs in their eyes and franchise potential on their minds, but you wouldn’t have thought those rules would apply to the Bible.
Never mind the fact that there’s only one book to mine for source material, but Jesus’ arc seemed to have a pretty definitive ending. That being said, faith-based movies have always done respectable business among the target demographic, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was the biggest of them all after pulling in the kind of numbers that a $100 million action blockbuster would kill for.
Talks about a sequel have been ongoing for well over a decade now, with regular Gibson collaborator Randall Wallace recently claiming that it would be both mind-blowing and the Mount Everest of movies, whatever that means. Star Jim Caviezel has also weighed in as well, confirming that he’s read the most recent draft of the script and saying it’ll be the biggest film in history.
“It’s coming. It’s called The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection. It’s going to be the biggest film in world history.”
Is a sequel to The Passion of the Christ going to dislodge Avengers: Endgame as the highest-grossing movie ever made? Absolutely not. Although, you get the feeling that isn’t quite what the 51 year-old meant with his comments.
Caviezel has admitted many times in the past that taking the lead role in the 2004 original had a hugely adverse effect on his career prospects, something that he was fully aware of at the time, so you have to at least admire the actor’s dedication to his beliefs for him to spend nearly two decades waiting for the sequel to finally come together.