'The Passion Of The Christ' Sequel Will Bring Jesus Back From The Dead

You can't keep that Jesus guy down. Mel Gibson has been planning a sequel to his controversial biblical epic The Passion of the Christ for a while now, and star Jim Caviezel has finally confirmed he'll be growing out his beard to reprise his role as the Son of God.

In 2004, Mel Gibson's bloody, controversial The Passion of the Christ was a box office smash, and ever since then, Gibson has been teasing the idea of a sequel. Gibson confirmed the sequel in 2016, and now, Jesus himself, Jim Caviezel, has revealed he'll be returning as well. Caviezel told USA Today he'd be back for the biblical sequel and has nothing but lofty expectations for the film. "I'll tell you this much," the actor said, "the film he's going to do is going to be the biggest film in history. It's that good." The biggest film in history? Bigger than even Chappie? We'll see!

The Passion of the Christ sequel will be called The Resurrection, and Randall Wallace, who penned the script for Gibson's Braveheart, will write the film. "We're trying to craft this in a way that's cinematically compelling and enlightening so that it shines new light, if possible, without creating some weird thing," Gibson said in 2016.

There are no details about what the film's story will be, but (spoiler alert!) it will likely deal with the events of Christ's resurrection, what with that title and all. At the end of The Passion of the Christ, we saw Caviezel's Jesus rise from his tomb and walk out into the daylight just before the credits rolled. This film will likely pick up from there. Whether or not Gibson can recapture the success he had with the first film, which remains the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time in North America with $370.8 million in box office revenue, remains to be seen. Since the original Passion's release, controversial events in Gibson's life have sidetracked his career (although he did manage to appear in Daddy's Home 2 last year, somehow).

I suppose one's enjoyment of The Passion and its proposed sequel comes down to how much one can separate the art from the artist. I think Gibson is a talented filmmaker – his Apocalypto is highly underrated – but he's also clearly a bit of a terrible person with an abusive past, and that understandably doesn't sit well with a lot of people (myself included). As a non-believer myself, I failed to take away a religious message from The Passion. I did, however, appreciate how uncompromisingly brutal it was, to the point where it almost bordered on becoming a horror movie, complete with a creepy CGI-enhanced Satan showing up at random moments. That said, I'm not exactly clamoring for a sequel. Those of you who are looking forward to The Passion 2: Passion Harder, however, are in luck.