OLIVIA MARNE
“Showgirls” and “Basic Instinct” director Paul Verhoven is going where only one Mel has gone before.
The controversial filmmaker is taking on Jesus in the new pic “Jesus of Nazareth”, based on the filmmaker’s own book about our lord.
Deadline broke the news, saying :
I’m told that Muse Productions’ Chris Hanley, whose credits include American Psycho, has stepped up to finance development of a film about Christ. It will be based on Jesus of Nazareth, a book that director Paul Verhoeven co-wrote after immersing himself in the history and researching the subject for nearly two decades. Verhoeven plans to direct the film, which will be written by Roger Avary. Avary shared the Academy Award for Best Original Script with Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction.
Verhoeven’s take on the life of Jesus Christ discounts all of the miracles that inform the New Testament. That includes the immaculate conception, and the resurrection. Verhoeven doesn’t believe any of them happened. I wrote about Verhoeven’s ambitions in spring, 2011 as he and his reps at ICM first tried to find funding, no small feat given some of the theories he put forth in the book. The most controversial: that Jesus might have been the product of his mother being raped by a Roman soldier, which Verhoeven said was commonplace at the time, and that Jesus was a radical prophet who performed exorcisms and was convinced he would find the kingdom of Heaven on earth, and did not know he would be sentenced to die on the cross by Pontius Pilate. That, and the discounting of the miracles that pepper the New Testament, has made this a daunting project to set up
I bet!
Now the only question is, will Sharon Stone be required to spread her legs-on-camera as Mary?
