Alexandre Aja is slowly, cautiously orbiting a big screen version of The Gospel According to Jimmy. Please don’t be confusing this with any offcuts or offal from the Belushi family - instead, it originated as a satirical novel by Didier van Cauwelaert. Here is Aja’s own explanation of the book’s plot:

“You have to imagine, a few years from now, the Republicans want to get back in the White House, and the only thing that they find is like an old cloning project … to clone Jesus from a blood cell on the Shroud of Turin. And one subject had survived, and he’s fixing pools in L.A., named Jimmy. And they’re going to find him and ask him to come back and help them to get back to power.”

Aja says that he considers Seth Rogen the perfect casting for his cloned Christ.

I feel Seth may be a little pale for the role, but he definitely does have many of the other desirable characteristics. All in all, I think I’d love to see him end up in the film, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself and second guess him. I wonder what this concept would even sound like to Seth Rogen? Or to Christians? Republicans? Pool cleaners? I’ve never been one of the above, and I don’t want to be presumptuous.

I’m surprised that Aja has said he’s looking for a writer to take the project on (what’s happened to Gregory Levasseur - doesn’t he fancy the challenge?) and am perhaps a little sceptically of his suitability to something so outside of the horror field. On the other hand, many of you might be skeptical of his suitability to any more projects in the horror field and will welcome him trying his hand at something different.

Who would you cast as the clone of the Christ?

Here’s my current favorite film about a self-sacrificing pool cleaner who works for “The Man”.  Called simply The Pool Cleaner it was written, directed by and stars Garth Jennings, Son of Rambow genius and Hot Fuzz crackhead.

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