Martin Scorsese has completed a script for his new film, "A Life of Jesus" and has plans to start filming later this year.
The Oscar-winning director shared the update with the Los Angeles Times, saying that critic and filmmaker Kent Jones co-wrote the screenplay for the film, which will be based on Shūsaku Endō's book "A Life of Jesus."
The focus will be on Jesus' "core teachings in a way that explores the principles but doesn't proselytize," he said.
"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 explained.
"Right now, 'religion' — you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it's failed in so many ways," he noted. "But that doesn't mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong. Let's get back. Let's just think about it."
The film will take place in the present day to avoid being "locked in a certain period" and to make the film "feel timeless," the Los Angeles Times wrote. Inspiration from the project arose in May 2023 when Scorsese met Pope Francis at the Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination conference. This event brought together artists and creatives from across the world.
After the meeting, Scorsese said, "I have responded to the pope's appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus."
Scorsese was raised Catholic. He attended a Catholic high school before attending a preparatory seminary for one year.
"When I was younger, I was thinking of making a film about being a priest," he told Jesuit priest Antonio Spardo in a 2016 interview.
"I myself wanted to follow in Father Principe's [his parish priest] footsteps, so to speak, and be a priest," he added. "I went to a preparatory seminary but I failed out the first year."
Although he didn't attend Mass regularly, "my way has been, and is, Catholicism. After many years of thinking about other things, dabbling here and there, I am most comfortable as a Catholic."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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