In the last few months, a spate of faith-based films including “Risen” (released in February) and “The Young Messiah” (from March) has come to present never-told or newly imagined chapters of Jesus’ existence, offering biblical back stories aimed at an audience of roughly 200 million Americans who self-identify as Christians and attend church at least once a month.
What’s more, several other such films are in Hollywood’s pipeline. Sony Pictures Animation recently announced it would release an as-yet untitled Nativity movie in December 2017 that presents the story of Christ’s birth from the perspective of animals in the manger. And later this year, Universal Pictures International and Film4 are scheduled to produce a biopic about Mary Magdalene — who is believed to have seen Jesus on the cross and later resurrected — offering what its producers describe in a statement as “an incredibly powerful new perspective on one of the world’s most well-known origin stories.”
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