Martin Scorsese gives update on Jesus Christ movie: “I want to make something unique & different”

Martin Scorsese recently spoke at the Berlin Film Festival, where he discussed his upcoming movie chronicling the life of Jesus Christ.

The Jesus Christ movie could be Martin Scorsese’s next project, but the director is still in the process of figuring it out. “I’m contemplating it right now,” Scorsese said. “What kind of film I’m not quite sure, but I want to make something unique and different that could be thought-provoking and I hope also entertaining. I’m not quite sure yet how to go about it.“

Once the awards tour for Killers of the Flower Moon is behind him, Scorsese hopes to resume work on the project. “Maybe I’ll get some sleep and then wake up and I’ll have this fresh idea of how to do it,” he said. While it seems like there’s still a lot to do before the project moves forward, the film is expected to be based on Shūsaku Endō’s book A Life of Jesus, who also wrote the novel on which Silence was based.

Speaking of Silence, it was that film which put Scorsese in touch with Pope Francis, which sparked a desire to make another movie about Jesus. “That was viewed by the Vatican and so I met the Pope a couple of times based on that and at one point in a meeting he also talked about fresher ways of thinking about of Christianity, the essentials of it,” Scorsese said. “I’m always interested in that.“

The last time Martin Scorsese tackled Jesus Christ, he was the focus of a large amount of outrage. The Last Temptation of Christ starred Willem Dafoe as Christ, who found himself struggling with various forms of temptation, including lust, fear, and doubt. As a result, it came under fire from Christian groups, who went so far as to claim the movie was blasphemy.

With this film, the director has previously said that he hopes to make religion a little more accessible. “I’m trying to find a new way to make it more accessible and take away the negative onus of what has been associated with organized religion,” Scorsese said. “Right now, ‘religion,’ you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it’s failed in so many ways. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong. Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it. You may reject it. But it might make a difference in how you live your life — even in rejecting it. Don’t dismiss it offhand. That’s all I’m talking about. And I’m saying that as a person who’s going to be 81 in a couple of days. You know what I’m saying?“