Mel Gibson is still developing The Passion of the Christ 2, his long-awaited sequel to one of the most controversial movies of all time – and it has a new title.
In 2004, Gibson broke box office records with The Passion of the Christ, his harrowing account of Jesus’ final hours (it was America’s highest-grossing R-rated movie until Deadpool & Wolverine).
Now, as The Chosen hones in on the crucifixion, the filmmaker is finally moving ahead with his sequel.
In the original film’s final moments, Jim Caviezel’s Jesus awoke and left his tomb. As you’d expect, the follow-up will chronicle the resurrection (in more detail than you might expect), and it now has a slightly different title.
Mel Gibson delivers huge ‘The Resurrection of Christ’ update
While appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience, Gibson discussed his plans for The Passion of the Christ 2 and revealed its new title: The Resurrection of Christ.
Gibson talks about The Passion of the Christ sequel at 46:46 in the video below:
It was reported last year that it’d start filming sometime in 2025 – this is no longer the case, with Gibson hoping to begin production in 2026.
“I don’t have a start date. I just have to begin pre-production and see what happens. It’s just going to roll in its own time. It’s taking its own time. I thought it was late. It’s taking too long. It’s taking too long. But it’s probably just right. It’s when it’s supposed to be,” he explained.
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Here’s the problem: in Gibson’s eyes, the resurrection story “isn’t linear, so it’s hard to understand… it’s gotta be put in a framework where you answer a few other questions as well, and you have to juxtapose the event itself against everything else so that it makes some kind of sense in a bigger picture.”
The script took seven years to write between Gibson, his brother, and co-writer Randall Wallace. Whatever shape it’s taken, one thing is certain: it’s going to be wild.
“There’s a lot required because it’s an acid trip. When we wrote it, it is like… I’ve never read anything like it,” he explained.
“There’s some good heads put together, but there’s some crazy stuff. And I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which is you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go Hell. You need to go to Sheol.”
This echoes what Gibson told Stephen Colbert, hinting that it could adapt the harrowing of hell. When asked if there are “any bad guys,” he said: “There are… they’re in another realm.”
In the meantime, check out the biggest movies coming out in 2025 and our list of the best movies of 2024.
