Mel Gibson and Randall Wallace have proven to be a powerhouse team for successful faith-inspired films. Twelve years after the release of The Passion of the Christ, they are talking about producing a film focused on the resurrection.
Earlier this month, The Hollywood Reporter pressed Randall Wallace into addressing the rumor. They report: “Wallace, nominated for an Academy Award for scripting Gibson’s 1995 best picture Oscar winner Braveheart, on Thursday (reluctantly) confirmed rumors that he has begun to write a script for a story about the resurrection, telling THR that the project is becoming too difficult to keep under wraps.
“Wallace, who most recently directed and co-wrote the 2014 faith-based drama Heaven Is for Real, says he and Gibson began to get serious about a sequel to The Passion, the most successful independent film of all time, while making Hacksaw Ridge, which Gibson directed and Wallace co-wrote. Hacksaw Ridge opens in November and centers on World War II Army medic Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“Wallace was a religion major at Duke University and says the resurrection was a specialty of his. ‘I always wanted to tell this story,’ he says. ‘The Passion is the beginning and there’s a lot more story to tell.’”
Just days ago, at the SoCal Harvest Crusade 2016, Greg Laurie interviewed Mel Gibson and asked about the potential “resurrection” project. While not outright confirming that it is a definite “go,” Gibson did say, “We’re talking about that. Of course, that’s a huge undertaking. It’s a very big subject, and it needs to be looked at because we don’t want to just do a simple rendering of it. We can all read what happened but in order to really experience and explore the deeper meanings of what it’s about is going to take some doing. And Randall Wallace is up to the task.”
In the full interview below, Mel Gibson also discusses Wallace’s and his upcoming release Hacksaw Ridge, which will hit theaters in November.