“The Passion of the Christ 2”: Mel Gibson wants to start filming in the spring of 2023

It took a few years for The Passion Of The Christ 2 (or The Passion Of The Christ: Resurrection) to become a solid project. But now director Mel Gibson (“Hacksaw Ridge”) seems to have finally gotten to the point: Production will start in the spring of 2023. Jim Caviezel (“Person Of Interest”) will once again return in the role of Jesus.

Whether that will be the case remains to be seen, but it’s about time, as a sequel to Mel Gibson’s mega hit “The Passion of the Christ” has been a decade in the making. With a budget of $30 million, the film grossed more than $612 million worldwide in 2004, making it one of the highest-grossing independent films of all time. It should not be concealed, however, that the work was also widely criticized – accusations of anti-Semitism and the glorification of violence were often leveled.

Mel Gibson and screenwriter Randall Wallace (“Braveheart”) worked extensively on the screenplay. There were probably six designs in all. While “The Passion of the Christ” still depicts the days of Jesus’ suffering up to his crucifixion in gruesome images, part 2 is intended to cover the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether the cameras will roll this year remains to be seen. In any case, we can expect another film here that will divide the masses.

Bad news for Lethal Weapon 5?

Conversely, if “The Passion of the Christ 2” is due to start shooting in the spring, it also means “Lethal Weapon 5” will be pushed back even further into the future. Here too, Mel Gibson has taken over the director’s chair after Richard Donner passed away earlier. Gibson has now completed the unfinished script with The Equalizer author Richard Wenk. The last information on the status of “Lethal Weapon 5” was in September 2023. Here, Gibson assured Chris Bumbray that the movie is definitely in the works:

“I was working on the script, which of course was started by Donner… and of course he and his writing partner had a pretty good setup. […] I think what stopped it was they changed jobs at Warner there, this guy got fired and this other guy took over and Discovery and all that stuff. You sometimes get lost in the crush as they regroup and sort. ‘Lethal Weapon 5’ is coming soon. I don’t know when, but it will happen.”

For Mel Gibson, the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery last year was probably one of the reasons why development on “Lethal Weapon 5” is getting off to a much slower pace than he’d like. And since Gibson has been working on “The Passion of the Christ 2” for a while now, fans will have to wait a little longer. But the movie is far from off the table.