“The Passion of the Christ” was a film that caused quite a stir upon its release in 2004. It made a fortune at the box-office but also gained some notoriety. Although many Christians praised it for its depiction of one of the key events in “The Bible”, others slammed it for its excessive violence and claimed that it was anti-Semitic.

The violence was such a problem for some audiences that Gibson even re-edited the film and released a version with several minutes’ worth of bloodshed cut. The anti-Semitism allegations were only made worse when an anti-Semitic outburst by Gibson was recorded while he was drunk.

Gibson has since worked on many other hit pictures including “Apocalypto” and “Hacksaw Ridge”. He’s certainly a talented filmmaker and apparently, he wants to make a sequel to arguably his most successful and most controversial film. Over the years, there have been various rumours as well as public comments from Gibson that claim a sequel is in the works.

I will be particularly amazed if the new movie (if and when it does finally come out) will be able to generate the same hype and controversy that the original did. While religious films always caused some controversy, films such as “Noah”, “Exodus: Gods And Kings” and “Mother!” only caused a fraction of the outrage that “Passion of the Christ” did.

The new film is obviously important to Gibson as he’s coming back to explore the life of Jesus more after all these years. It’s not like he just rushed a sequel out to get paid. This is something he has clearly put a lot of thought into. Gibson prides himself on his Christian faith and so does Jim Caviezel (“The Thin Red Line”), who played Jesus in “Passion of the Christ” and hopes to return for the new movie.

I was not really a fan of “Passion of the Christ” but I admired the effort that clearly went into it. The cast members spoke dead languages and the production values were terrific. I’m certainly intrigued to see what Gibson and Caviezel will do next.