Martin Scorsese Meets With Pope Francis, Says Next Film Is About Jesus

Martin Scorsese’s next project will be about Jesus, the legendary filmmaker hinted following a moving personal meeting with Pope Francis, according to multiple reports.  

The 80-year-old director had a private audience with the Pope on Saturday, later explaining that the “Holy Father’s appeal ‘to let us see Jesus’ acted in him” and he feels compelled to honor that request. 

“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. And I’m about to start making it,” Scorsese said during a moderated talk at The Vatican, Variety reported. 

Scorsese made the remarks at a conference for the Global Aesthetics of the Catholic Imagination. During the discussion with a group organizer, Scorsese reflected on his previous films that centered on Christianity, including 2016’s “Silence” about Christian priests being persecuted in 17th century Japan and the controversial “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which was condemned by the Catholic Church in 1988. Speaking about the intersectionality of his faith and work, Scorsese previously explained, “My whole life has been movies and religion. That’s it. Nothing else.” 

Scorsese already has three other projects in the works and premiered his new film Killers of the Flower Moon — starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, and Jesse Plemons — at Cannes earlier this month. 

From Rolling Stone US.