Martin Scorsese Says His Upcoming Movie About Jesus Aims to 'Take Away the Negatives Associated with Organized Religion'

"Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it," Martin Scorsese said of approaching Christianity in his next movie, which he plans to film in 2024

Martin Scorsese said he was planning to make a movie about Jesus months ago — and it appears he's ready to film it this year.

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times in an article published Monday, Scorsese, 81, told the outlet that he has finished the movie's screenplay with co-writer Kent Jones and plans to shoot the movie in 2024. The movie is based on the novel A Life of Jesus, by the late Japanese author Shūsaku Endō. Endō also wrote Silence, a 1966 novel revolving around 17th-century Jesuit priests that Scorsese adapted into his 2016 film of the same name, which starred Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver.

While the Killers of the Flower Moon filmmaker told the outlet he and Jones remain “swimming in inspiration" on the new Jesus-inspired project, he shared that he intends for the movie to be set largely in the present day and have an 80-minute runtime. (His last two movies, Killers and The Irishman, each run well over three hours long.)

“I’m trying to find a new way to make it more accessible and take away the negative onus of what has been associated with organized religion," he said.

Related: Killers of the Flower Moon's Lily Gladstone Makes History and Delivers Golden Globes Speech in Blackfeet Language

“Right now, ‘religion,’ you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it’s failed in so many ways. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong," he added. "Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it. You may reject it. But it might make a difference in how you live your life — even in rejecting it. Don’t dismiss it offhand. That’s all I’m talking about. And I’m saying that as a person who’s going to be 81 in a couple of days. You know what I’m saying?”

Scorsese previously announced his intention to make a movie about Jesus shortly after he met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in May 2023; Variety reported that Scorsese announced the news at a conference he attended in Rome called "The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination."

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"I have responded to the Pope's appeal to artists in the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus," he said at the time. "And I'm about to start making it."

Related: Martin Scorsese Reflects on His 50-Year Friendship with Robert De Niro and the ‘Strange Trust’ They Share

Catholicism and religious themes have played roles in Scorsese's past works like Silence, as well as the 1988 movie The Last Temptation of Christ.

The director's most recent movie, Killers, won one award at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards on Sunday when Lily Gladstone was named best actress in a drama for her leading role as Mollie Burkhart. The film is up for 12 awards at the upcoming 2024 Critics Choice Awards on Jan. 14.

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