You know, with Gordon Liu as Confucious, Robert DeNiro as Frankenstein, and Stephen Chow in the director’s chair? This is almost a good idea.
Great idea! The Muslims will LOVE it!
I Know You Were Tempted Last Summer.
“OK, now, stay with me here, but I have this great idea…I want to make Mohammed…A LESBIAN!”
I believe it was this thread about the horrible Martin Lawrence. Post number 12.
Yeah . . . now keep with me, he’s a lesbian and he’s getting it on with his wives, and then Jesus comes in to fix the CABLE . . . OK, then we cue the music . . .
Considering that one of the main tenets of Islam forbids any images or visual portraits of Mohammed, that’s gotta be one doozy of a challenge… 
I wouldn’t mind seeing sequel set a few hundred years later, as theologians start really trying to grapple with some of the more obscure/confusing dogmatic issues (angels/head of a pin, Jesus being 100% human AND 100% divine simultaneously, etc.). The film would be nothing but a bunch of guys sitting around a table talking.
A sort of My Dinner With Boethius.
Here’s how they did it in 1976 with The Messenger (the story of Mohammed and his nephew Ali)
“The closest that the camera comes to showing Ali on screen are images of Ali’s camel and of his powerful sword before battle whereas the camera itself “becomes” Mohammed in scenes where characters address the prophet. At those times the camera may look away from an enemy or may “stand up” to address his uncle Hamza (Anthony Quinn) silently—it would be considered sacrilegious for the prophet to speak on celluloid.”
“Hollywood balked at making a movie that refuses to put the main character on the screen and deals with the religion that mainstream Americans are least familiar with. Therefore, Islamic producer/director Moustapha Akkad put together The Message (a.k.a. Mohammed: The Messenger of God) as a labor of love so that the truth about Islam would finally be told through film. Remaining within the strict teachings of Islam, Akkad finds ways to tell the story of Mohammed without photographing the prophet-founder or any of the central figures of the Faith, like Ali.”
Review from Culture Dose
That didn’t stop them from doing it once before. Of course, they had to resort to the awkward device of having the camera fill in for Mohammed but that still didn’t stop the movie from being banned in many Islamic countries.
Not only that, but in Washington DC, the B’nai Brith center was taken over and hostages were held by the Hanafi Muslim sect in protest of the movie. John Waters called it “the ultimate bad review.”
The End of the Spear certainly aspired to be a religious epic. Not sure if or where it ever played.
There are apparetly a lot of religiously-themed B movies starring Burt Reynolds and/or Orlando Jones.
Newline is currently producing a movie to be called Nativity.
Apparently Catherine Hardwick (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown) will direct. No word on casting. It seems to me like I saw an internet rumor some time back (maybe on AICN?) that Katie Holmes was a possibility as Mary. That would be awful, but I doubt that I would ever go to something as glurgey as this thing appears to be anyway (I saw TPOTC twice, though).
A big-budget “Justinian”…
After what they did to Alexander and to the Trojan War?
It would consist of 40 minutes of Justinian’s whole life, interposed within 90 minutes of Theodora in various, um, compromising situations… :eek:
…Hmmm…
Babe, get me Angelina’s agent on the phone…
BTW, it’s hard to make a film that is religious in earnest and does not turn glurgy; and bloody impossible to make one such where some people will not declare it “glurge” the instant they see there’s witnessing in it.
OTOH if you make it fresh and innovative and make the characters “real”, you’ll get a whole lot of pickets by the religious offenderati, even if you had Pope Benedict himself check off on the theology.
The logical next step would be for Gibson to make Acts of the Apostles next. The problem there is that it’s too complicated – it doesn’t have a clear, compelling story arc.
Here’s one:
A deeply religious man, troubled by what he sees as corruption and worldliness. A man of action, who faces ostracism and becomes a folk hero. Top it off with him marrying a nun.
Ladies and Gentlemen…Martin Luther!
It has some good material. It has Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, it has some interesting episodic stories, even some potential for comedy (there is a story about a guy falling asleep during a sermon, falling out an upper story window and being killed. Paul then runs down and quickly resurrects him). There is also whatever drama and tension can be drawn from Paul’s conflict and resolution with the other apostles. The big problem with Acts is that it doesn’t have an ending. It ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome. Christian tradition is that Paul was martyred but the New Testament does not actually say that (the claim is first found in Eusebius). Of course, Paul getting his head chopped off would be a nice, dramatic cliamx (and Gibson could indulge his penchant for gore) but it would not be strictly Canonical.
that would be our friend, Eutychus.
There’a also** The Adventures of Martin Luther**, when was running around trying to get everyone to use birth control. I think it was on the Meaning of Life DVD.