The Resurrection Business: Mel Gibson’s Sacred Spectacle

There’s something almost biblical about the timing—twenty years in cinematic wilderness, and now The Passion of the Christ rises again. Not once, but twice. Two sequels, filming back-to-back, slated to arrive in 2027. In the strange theatre of American religiosity, no one stages crucifixion quite like Mel Gibson. The auteur turned lightning rod is gambling on resurrection in more ways than one.

The original film, released in 2004, was a contradiction in motion: brutally devout, violently meditative, and the kind of commercial hit no one in Hollywood expected to bank. It made nearly $612 million worldwide, became a cornerstone of evangelical film fandom, and sparked debates that still smolder in cultural ash. Gibson’s return to that same altar—older, unrepentant, and still polarizing—feels less like a sequel and more like a provocation.

Stations of Speculation

What, exactly, is left to say? If The Passion was the crucifixion, the follow-ups—Resurrection: The Passion of the Christ and its unnamed companion piece—will explore what happened after the tomb cracked open. But this isn’t just about Jesus walking again. It’s about power, myth, and the optics of faith in a post-fact world. And it’s being directed by a man whose personal scandals have long danced uneasily with his public projects.

Rumors swirl that the films may blend apocryphal gospels with cinematic grandeur, dipping into mysticism, spiritual warfare, and Rome’s political theater. Jim Caviezel returns, once again transforming pain into posture, quoting QAnon in press circuits while playing the Prince of Peace on-screen. One wonders—when does conviction become cosplay? And who profits when martyrdom becomes a box-office event?

Miracles and Marketing

Religious films tend to hide behind piety or profit. The Passion did both, and now its sequels seem ready to transcend genre and ignite something more feverish. There’s a reason it’s being released around Easter and Pentecost—because Mel Gibson doesn’t just want to tell a story. He wants to stage an event. “This is the biggest film I’ve ever made,” he reportedly said, which, given his legacy, is either chilling or thrilling depending on where you sit in the pews—or the comments section.

It’s hard to ignore the irony. A film about humility and salvation, bankrolled by controversy and designed for mass fervor. Yet perhaps that’s exactly the point: Christianity, after all, was born not in quiet devotion, but in political spectacle, insurgent belief, and the shock of the impossible. Gibson understands that performance. He’s turned it into doctrine.

As the camera pans once again toward Golgotha, the real question might be: is the resurrection of Christ the point—or is it the resurrection of Gibson’s cultural relevance? Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe, like all things religious and cinematic, the mystery is the message. And maybe, somewhere in the second hour of the sequel, as the lights dim and the wounds shine, we’ll realize this wasn’t about faith at all.

It was about the show.