In an update to his eagerly awaited film fans, Martin Scorsese revealed that the screenplay for Jesus is finished and the picture will have an 80-minute runtime.
The Oscar winner stated, “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,” in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.
“I responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” Martin had previously told Jesuit magazine.
However, the film does not appear to have a distributor connected. Meanwhile, Shūsaku Endō’s book A Life of Jesus served as the inspiration for the screenplay.
Meanwhile, Martin gave credit to his fellow director Ari Aster for the film’s 206-minute running length, Killers of the Flower Moon, his most recent release.
“I very much like the style and pacing of good horror films like Ari Aster’s ‘Midsommar’ or ‘Beau Is Afraid,'” he told the Irish Times.
“The pace of those movies is reminiscent of Val Lewton’s B films, like Jacques Tourneur’s ‘Cat People’ or ‘I Walked With a Zombie,'” he continued. Just a little bit quieter and slower.”
