Passion of the Christ II: Vengeance of the Christ

"The Passion of the Christ", released in 2004, took the film industry by storm, showing the world that even non-English speaking films can blow up and become among the highest grossing films of all time.  Since the film's unprecedented success, Icon Productions has long been eager to film the sequel, which would focus largely on the resurrection of Jesus, rather than his torture and demise.  Because of the controversy surrounding the film's writer and director, Mel Gibson in recent years, Icon decided they would re-imagine the sequel's creative team.  They came up with noted director Frank Darabont and acclaimed creator of "The Shawshank Redemption."  And as for the screenwriter, well... it's yours truly; the God-fearing Bard of Babel himself, Grady Richards.

When Icon Studios commissioned me to write this film, I was ecstatic.  Not only did I receive a hefty advance on the script, but I was being awarded an opportunity to exhibit my work on a global canvas, viewable by untold millions of movie-goers and religious zealots worldwide.  But unfortunately, the story of Jesus's resurrection is pretty bland.  He waited three days in a cave, rolled back a stone blocking the door, and disappeared from evidence for two thousand years.  If I'm going to be breaking into the Hollywood scene with this one film, you can bet your ass I'm going to spice it up a bit.

The following is a synopsis of my first featured screenplay "The Passion of the Christ II: Vengeance of the Christ".

Our film opens with a brief explanation regarding Jesus's nearly dead state.  Due to a peculiar atmospheric anomaly, he has laid in death not for three days, but for more than two thousand years.  Because of a shift in the space-time continuum, he is no longer in Israel, but in a cave far to the west.  As the credits role, Jesus is resurrected and re-emerges from the dark to find himself in present-day New York.

Jesus, stark naked, walks through central park while suspenseful, percussive music bangs in the background.  He is looking from one group of people to the next: bums, performance artists, hipsters, and then finally settling on a group of yuppies surrounding a bench.  Here is an excerpt of the scene in my script.

EXT: CENTRAL PARK, DAYTIME
JESUS walks slowly up to the YUPPIES who are laughing and pointing fingers at his naked body.  Jesus's face is an expressionless mask and his eyes never waver from the clan's leader.

YUPPIE LEADER

Hey, man you looking for a good time, or what?

JESUS

Give me your clothes.

YUPPIE LEADER

Screw you, buddy.  I think you'd better check yourself into Belleview.

JESUS (monotonous) 

Give me your clothes.

YUPPIE LEADER laughs sardonically, then gives JESUS a light shove.  JESUS erupts in a gout of violence, stripping the CROWN OF THORNS from his head and using it to slice YUPPIE LEADER'S throat.  THE OTHER YUPPIES gather around him in a circle, drawing chains and baseball bats from behind their backs.  JESUS breaks one man's neck with his bare hands, then chews through another's face.  ONE YUPPIE swings his chain and it whips around JESUS'S waist.  He grabs hold of it, slowly draws the YUPPIE in close, then jams his thumbs into the man's eye sockets.  THE YUPPIE goes into a fatal convulsion and drops from frame.  THE LAST YUPPIE takes a look at the carnage, then drops his wooden bat, backing away.

LAST YUPPIE (turning to run)

Hey, s-sorry man!  We was just foolin'!

As he runs away, JESUS picks up the discarded baseball bat and snaps it in half, producing a wickedly sharp wooden stake.  He hurls it into the air and it whistles down into THE LAST YUPPIE'S spine, cutting him nearly in half.  As THE LAST YUPPIE gurgles his final breath, we close in on JESUS'S wrathful face.

JESUS

This time... it's personal.

In the following scenes, Jesus goes on to meet Isabella, a down-on-her-luck Hispanic single-mother working as a stripper so she can raise her young son.  Jesus and Isabella fall madly in love, but Isabella is reluctant to let Jesus continue on his quest to find all the descendants of Pontius Pilate, the Roman who had ordered Jesus's execution.

Over the next ninety minutes, Jesus- armed with a shocking arsenal of ballistic weapons acquired from "Homey" (played by 50 Cent) hunts down each of the heirs of Pilate.  Most of them are Italian mobsters, of course, because everyone likes to see mobsters eat a chain of bullets and Pilate was Roman, so why the fuck not?

In the final scene, Don Rigatoni- the last descendant of Pilate and head of the Rigatoni crime syndicate- has kidnapped Isabelle and her son Lucian.  He is holding them hostage in a dark and rust-ridden industrial warehouse full of hydrolic presses and vats of glowing, molten steel.  Isabella is chained to a mechanism over the lava and is slowly descending to her own doom, while Don Rigatoni is climbing a scaffold with the infant Lucian pressed to his chest, a gun at his little temple.  Here is another excerpt from my script.

INT. INDUSTRIAL WAREHOUSE, NIGHT
As ISABELLA struggles against her chains, looking down in dread at the molten steel which will be her death, JESUS runs into frame and fidgets with the chains.  His forehead is bleeding and his clothes are filthy from his last action sequence. 

JESUS (exasperated)

I can't break the chains!  The Strength of Divinity is leaving me!

ISABELLA

Just go!  Go on and leave me.  Don Rigatoni has Lucian up on that scaffold.

JESUS

I won't leave you.  I... I can't.  I love you, Isabella.

ISABELLA

But you have to save Lucian...

JESUS

I won't leave you.

ISABELLA

You don't understand, Jesus.  Lucian is...

JESUS

Is what?  Izzy, Lucian is what?

ISABELLA

He's your son!

At the climax, Jesus dispatches Don Rigatoni from the world in a most grisly manner.  He and Isabella, along with their son Lucian return to her Manhattan apartment to begin a happy life together.  His vengeance sated, Jesus is no longer the killing machine he had once been, he is happy and gentle and kind once more.

But just before the final credits roll, it is hinted that Don Rigatoni is still alive.  Because Rigatoni and all the other children of Pilate were aliens from outer space.  A race of murder-scout aliens who had been probing the planet for centuries, sending back intelligence to their own intergalactic army.  And that army has now arrived.

You see, it is important to plant sequel seeds in the end-body of a work, because Hollywood eats that shit up- and it will ensure that I have a job after this script is over.

However, an unfortunate and unexpected happenstance occurred and Icon Productions refused my script.  Also, they asked that I return every penny of that hefty advance, which I have already spent on building a helicopter that goes under water.  

If I hadn't already sent the script to Lion's Gate, I guess I'd be pretty well screwed.  But Lion's Gate will film anything.

STAY TUNED for my Disney Channel Exclusive mini-series "Cross to Bear", a story about the life and death of Jesus, with all characters being replaced by cutesy cartoon bears!