Jesus Christ Returns in 2011 - Will He Please His Fans?

Excatly what it says in the title. A titled "Ressurection of the Christ" is slated for release in the Easter of 2011, which seems very fitting. In case you forgot, Easter is the holiday that celebrates the crucufiction and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Well, actually it is an old jewish harvest ritual, that happened to coincide with Jesus' return to Jerusalem, which subsequently got some germanic rituals (the easter bunny) mixed in there somewhere.

But noone wants to see a movie about any of that.

Rodney Brazeau of The Movie Blog (my source on this piece of news) speculates that this will be a movie of similar style and tone to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". Which most people probably remember for the very graphic depictions of torture and the crufixion itself. A bit unfair, I think, because the movie also manages to make the characters relatively interesting, compelling and believeable. And when you're dealing with scripture as your source material, that is far from a guarantee.

"Ressurection of the Christ" will apparantly also go deeper in to this aspect, that I found to be the most interesting in Gibson's film. It will explore the political landscape of the time, and how that eventually leads into the prosecution of "The King of the Jews".

As said earlier: Religious scripture can, moreso than other litterature, be the most difficult source material. Whereas a piece of fiction (such as Twilight or Harry Potter) may have a large and very diehard fanbase that will burst into rage at the very smallest of detail changed in adaptation, this doesn't really compare to how many toes you can end up stepping on by disrespecting or "mistreating" a religious work.

Nonetheless, most will agree that figures such as Jesus Christ (and most of his deeds and actions) have been absorbed so much into the general counsciousness, that one needs a new angle on the material (or the character itself) to catch your audience, show vision and ambition, tell your story and perhaps, in the process, make the original character even more defined and appreciated.