When in 2005 Family Guy invented the fictional trailer for The Passion of the Christ 2: Crucify This! no one imagined that Mel Gibson would get to work shortly after. And here we are, more than twenty years later, waiting for the arrival of The Resurrection of Christ. Not the real resurrection, of course, but the double movie that the director has made in the hope of capitalizing on an audience that, for some inexplicable reason, has adopted religion as a trend.
Amen, Mel
Gibson’s idea was, at the very least, striking: to release part 1 on March 26, 2027, and part 2 just a little over a month later, on May 6. However, he has decided to change his plans so that both installments fall on Ascension Day, which Christians believe is when Jesus ascended to the kingdom of heaven. Thus, the first installment will arrive on May 6 of next year and the second on May 25, 2028. Well then, so be it.
Seeing the little success that experiments like 28 years later have had, which released two installments in one year, with the second one sinking, it is normal for the director’s team to have been afraid. This, however, does not fear hyping up his audience, stating that “We have created something powerful. This film represents a large part of the work of my life, and it has demanded everything from me as a director and artist. This is much more than a movie for me. It is a mission I have carried for over 20 years to tell what I believe is the most important story in the world“. In case you haven’t noticed, he expects the Christian audience to fill the theater. And of course, he will achieve that.
It is worth remembering that The Passion of the Christ already grossed 612 million dollars in its day, making it the highest-grossing R-rated film in history (until the arrival of Deadpool and Wolverine). These sequels promise to break all records and demonstrate that Gibson’s controversies are more than forgotten at this point. Whether they will succeed or not remains to be seen.
