Aronofsky has Noah, and Spielberg and Scott are working on Moses projects, but what about Jesus? True, he's already had quite a few movies, but now Chris Hanley is signed on to develop a new project about the holy man of Nazareth.
With titles like American Psycho in his past, Hanley is developing the project basing the story on Paul Verhoeven's Jesus of Nazareth, Verhoeven is also set to direct the film. Roger Avary will be scripting the film, his largest credit comes from Pulp Fiction which he won an Oscar for Best Original Script with Quentin Tarantino.
The project is sure to be controversial, especially since this telling will get rid of all of the miracles that Verhoeven doesn't believe ever happened. He also has the theory that Jesus might be the product of his mother being raped by a Roman soldier. I'm pretty sure there won't be many Christians interested in that idea.
In addition those theories, there is also his idea that Jesus was "a radical prophet who performed exorcisms and was convinced he would find the kingdom of Heaven on earth." That has made funding difficult to find and that fact that he wants to make the opposite of The Passion Of The Christ and focus more on what Christ preached and thought.
“If you look at the man, it’s clear you have a person who was completely innovative in the field of ethics,” Verhoeven told me last year. “My own passion for Jesus came when I started to realize that. It’s not about miracles, it’s about a new set of ethics, an openness towards the world, which was anathema in a Roman-dominated world. I believe he was crucified because they felt that politically, he was a dangerous person whose following was getting bigger and bigger. Jesus’ ideals are about the utopia of human behavior, about how we should treat each other, how we should step into the shoes of our enemy.”
There are many that would say Verhoeven's ideas are blasphemous, but there may be a way he can balance to two and appeal to a very wide audience. I'm not sure how he'll do it, but making a gritty, controversial independent film may be the best way to start.
