Martin Scorsese Announces Film On Jesus Christ After Meeting Pope Francis: Report

Renowned filmmaker Martin Scorsese announced on Saturday that he will make a film on Jesus Christ following his meeting with Pope Francis, Variety reported. The veteran director is currently in Italy attending a series of religious and cinematic events. Before the conference titled ''The Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination,'' Mr. Scorsese and his wife Helen Morris were introduced to Pope Francis during a private audience.

After the meeting, the director announced that he would be making a film on Jesus Christ.

''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. He added, ''And I'm about to start making it.''

Antonio Spadaro, the editor of the periodical which organised the conference said that the conversation between Pope and the director included shared film references and anecdotes.

Thank you to Martin #Scorsese for accepting the invitation to join us of La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University - along with his wife and daughter - in the meeting of 40 poets and writers from different Countries with #PopeFrancesco, who said among other things, "This is… pic.twitter.com/yG6bEyo2Wq

— Antonio Spadaro (@antoniospadaro) May 27, 2023

Representatives for Mr. Scorsese told The Guardian they had no further information on the project other than that the director had already provided.

This is not the first time that the director has been inspired by religion to make a movie.

According to Deadline, he previously made 'The Last Temptation of Christ' in 1988, 'Kundun' about the life of the Dalai Lama, in 1997, and 'Silence' about Jesuit Christians in 2016. 

The 80-year-old filmmaker is known for his movies like 'Goodfellas', 'Shutter Island', 'The Wolf of Wall Street', 'Taxi Driver', 'The Irishman' and 'Gangs of New York'.

His most recent project is Killers of the Flower Moon, a historical crime drama that chronicles the mysterious deaths of the Osage tribe in the United States. The movie had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and received a 9-minute-long standing ovation after it was screened.