The Bible onscreen in the new millennium

The extreme profitability of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ in 2004 came as a great surprise to the Hollywood establishment, particularly considering its failure to find production funding through a major studio. Since this time, the Biblical epic, primarily film and television features adapting stories from both the Old and New Testaments, long thought dead in terms of widespread marketability, has become a viable product, both inside and outside of Hollywood with regards to seeking both profits and critical acclaim, as well as outlets for auteurist ‘passion projects’ such as Gibson’s film, Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014), and Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014). With 2016 seeing two new fiction films featuring depictions of Jesus, the crucifixion, and resurrection [Risen (dir. Kevin Reynolds) and Ben-Hur (dir. Timur Bekmambetov)], academic consideration of the modern Biblical epic is both timely and highly relevant, and this proposed collection aims to be a starting point for filling this scholarly gap