Academy Award-winning director Mel Gibson revealed his latest plans to begin shooting the long-anticipated sequel to the 2004 blockbuster hit ‘Passion of the Christ.’ Speaking on the world’s number one podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, Gibson suggested filming could begin as soon as August with actor Jim Caviezel prepared to reprise his role as the titular Jesus Christ.
This isn’t the first time Gibson and company have shared plans to begin filming. Previously announced were filming dates in both 2023 and 2024; indeed, plans for a sequel have been in the works for over two decades following the release of the critically- and financially-successful ‘Passion” movie. Filmed on a budget of around just $30 million, it grossed over half a billion dollars worldwide.
If filming holds true to the latest schedule, it would stand to reason the film’s release date could fall on the Easter holiday, the third of April in 2026. And in telling the story of Christ’s defeating of death and his resurrection, Gibson intimated that the follow-up movie would have to venture to other realms in order to fully tell this story. Specifically, the film would attempt to recreate a place for fallen angels. In other words, Hell.
Speaking to Joe Rogan on January 9th, 2025, Gibson said that visiting Hell – Sheol – was necessary to “really tell the story” he was setting out to. “I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which means you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go to hell,” Gibson said to the eponymous host.
“You need to go to Sheol,” he continued, before expressing the need to make sure it’s not overtly just fire and our colloquial, modern-day, watered-down visual conception of Satan’s lair. “It’s about finding the way in that’s not cheesy or too obvious. I think I have ideas about how to do that and how to evoke things and emotions in people from the way you depict it and the way you shoot it.”
Gibson elaborated on the tall task of portraying the he didn’t come to the decision lightly, nor expected the on-screen portrayal of the Christian underworld as an easy task. “So I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to require a lot of planning and I’m not wholly sure I can pull it off; to tell you the truth, it’s super ambitious. But I’ll take a crack at it because that’s what you’ve got to do, right, walk up to the plate, right?” he expressed to Rogan.
World of Reel, a self-described “place for alternative movie news,” reported that the official title of Gibson’s highly-anticipated sequel is rumored to be “The Resurrection of Christ.” It added, “The story would focus on the twenty-four hours encompassing Jesus’ passion and the events that occurred three days between his crucifixion and resurrection. Gibson has described ‘Resurrection’ as an “acid trip” with Jesus going into ‘other realms.'”