Manuela Cacciamani, CEO of Rome’s historic Cinecittà Studios, has said Mel Gibson plans to begin production on The Resurrection Of The Christ at the studio in August.
Cacciamani let news of the production start date slip during an interview with Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
“I can confirm that the next film directed by Mel Gibson, produced by Icon Productions, The Resurrection of Christ, will be shot entirely in Cinecittà starting in August and requires many theaters and stage constructions,” she said.
Earlier this year, Gibson told Joe Rogan on his popular podcast that he aimed to start production on the sequel sometime in the next year. We’ve reached out to Gibson’s reps for comment.
“There’s a lot required because it’s an acid trip. I’ve never read anything like it,” Gibson said of the film’s script, which he later added was penned by himself alongside his brother and Randall Wallace (Braveheart) over a seven-year period.
“My brother and I and Randall all sort of congregated on this. So there’s some good heads put together, but there’s some crazy stuff,” Gibson added. “And I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which means you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go to hell. You need to go to Sheol.”
Gibson said that he plans to re-cast Jim Caviezel in the role of Jesus. Per the film’s title, the film will focus on Jesus Christ’s resurrection. The Passion Of The Christ ends with the crucifixion of Jesus. In the bible, Jesus is resurrected three days later. Gibson said he would need to enlist “a few techniques” such as CGI de-aging on Caviezel, since more than 20 years have passed since the first film.
Gibson described the film as “very ambitious” and said the narrative moves from “the fall of the angels to the death of the last apostle.”
“It’s about finding the way in that’s not cheesy or too obvious,” he said. “I think I have ideas about how to do that and how to evoke things and emotions in people from the way you depict it and the way you shoot it. So I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to require a lot of planning and I’m not wholly sure I can pull it off; to tell you the truth, it’s super ambitious. But I’ll take a crack at it because that’s what you’ve got to do, right, walk up to the plate, right?”
Elsewhere in her lengthy interview, Cacciamani said Ridley Scott is currently using Cinecittà “as a base camp for his new film” and the studio is also housing “Disney and Universal projects.”
“In addition, the collaboration with Fremantle and Endemol Shine Italy continues, and new important contracts are being signed,” she said.
