Last year, Lionsgate announced that they had acquired the film rights to Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, the latest in a long line of books which argue that Jesus was just a man and that Christianity has been getting him wrong since before the first New Testament texts were written.
Today, it was revealed that two actual filmmakers have come on board to adapt the book: producer David Heyman, best known for Gravity and the Harry Potter series, and screenwriter James Schamus, whose credits include all but three of Ang Lee’s feature films.
Deadline, which broke the news, doesn’t have much else to say except that “top directors have expressed interest” in the project. Variety also covered the basic story but without saying anything about possible directors.
This might not be the only unconventional take on the gospels that Heyman is currently developing. Three years ago, he was attached to an adaptation of Unholy Night, the Seth Grahame-Smith novel that reimagines the Magi as action-adventure heroes. But I haven’t heard anything about that project since then.
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