Martin Scorsese may have had some big news during his tour of Italy following the Cannes Film Festival in France.
The director says that after meeting with Pope Francis, he “responded to the pope’s call to artists in the only way I know of: imagining and writing a script for a movie about Jesus.”
Scorsese made these comments at a conference at the Vatican and reportedly said he was “about to start shooting” the film. Variation reports. Scorsese’s manager, Rick Yorn, did not respond to the trade publication’s request for comment.
The director had previously met with Pope Francis to discuss his 2016 film. Silence, It is based on a novel about Jesuit priests in 17th century Japan.
Scorsese has long kept religion and soul-searching at the center of his work, implicitly, in both his theological dramas and thriller and detective dramas.
Discussing the controversial 1988 film Christ’s Last Temptation, He once said: “My whole life has been cinema and religion. This much. Nothing else.”