Mel Gibson is preparing a sequel to one of the most controversial movies of all time — and he’s already gotten people outraged.
He’s planning to make a follow-up movie for 2004’s “The Passion of the Christ,” and is currently in talks with Jim Caviezel, the actor who played Jesus Christ in the first movie, to star. Gibson has been at work on the movie for years, and told USA Today in a 2016 interview that it will focus on the resurrection story from the New Testament.
The first “Passion of the Christ” movie sparked controversy upon its release in 2004. Critics assailed it for having excessive violence, being ahistorical, and including anti-Semitic themes. In part, the movie suggests the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem — considered one of the most tragic events in Jewish history — happened because local rabbis didn’t support Christ. The movie made $612 million on a $30 million budget.
“For filmmakers to do justice to the biblical accounts of the passion, they must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism,” The Anti-Defamation League said in a joint statement with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious groups upon reviewing the movie’s screenplay. “Absent such scholarly and theological understanding, productions such as ‘The Passion’ could likely falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews.”
Gibson himself became a pariah in Hollywood in 2006 when he gave anti-Semitic, sexist, and violent remarks to an officer who arrested him for allegedly drunk driving, and further in 2010 when he was investigated for domestic violence following sexist and violent remarks to his then-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva.
Despite never publicly apologizing for his comments and retaining a defensive stance, Gibson made and was nominated for an Oscar for his 2016 movie “Hacksaw Ridge,” signaling a broad acceptance for him returning to Hollywood’s fold. He also starred last year in the comedy “Daddy’s Home 2.”
But not everyone is ready to forgive him. Twitter’s reaction to the news that Mel Gibson is making a “Passion of the Christ” sequel — an apparent anti-Semite making a sequel to an apparently anti-semitic movie — was overwhelmingly negative.
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Gibson’s “Passion” sequel is planned for a release in 2019 or 2020. No studio is attached to the project yet.