Martin Scorsese’s New Jesus Film Is 80 Minutes Long and Aims to ‘Take Away the Negative’ Associations With ‘Organized Religion’
While Martin Scorsese is celebrating his latest epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” on the awards circuit, the filmmaker is already teasing what could be his next movie, based on Shūsaku Endō’s book “A Life of Jesus.” (Endō also wrote “Silence,” which Scorsese adapted into the 2016 historical drama starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver.)
Scorsese revealed in a new interview with The Los Angeles Times that his next religious film will be set mostly in the present day, but, according to the paper, “Scorsese doesn’t want to be locked into a certain period, because he wants the film to feel timeless.” Plus, he envisions the film will clock in at around 80 minutes, a stark contrast to “Flower Moon’s” 206-minute runtime. Per the L.A. Times, the movie will focus on “Jesus’ core teachings in a way that explores the principles but doesn’t proselytize.”
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“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 told the publication. “Right now, ‘religion,’ you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it’s failed in so many ways. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong. Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it. You may reject it. But it might make a difference in how you live your life — even in rejecting it. Don’t dismiss it offhand. That’s all I’m talking about. And I’m saying that as a person who’s going to be 81 in a couple of days.”
Scorsese has already finished writing the screenplay for the Jesus movie with critic and filmmaker Kent Jones, who made his feature debut with the 2018 indie drama “Diane.” According to the L.A. Times, Scorsese plans to shoot the movie later this year.
Meanwhile, the status of Scorsese’s other upcoming film, based on the David Grann nonfiction book “The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder” and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is unknown. That project, from Apple Original Films, was announced in July 2022, but production has yet to start.
In October, Scorsese indicated to IndieWire that he would be taking a break from working on “The Wager,” saying, “First of all, the issue is now that the writer’s strike is over, and because so much is on me to go out there and spread the word about ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ let me take a break. And we’ll get working with writers and see if we get it on the page. And maybe it’s something I could co-direct, so to speak. It’ll be difficult. But there are ways now, with certain technical things we could do, to make it bearable. Depending on how we get the script together.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” was nominated for seven Golden Globes and took home one win on Sunday, for Lily Gladstone’s lead performance as Mollie Kyle.
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