Mel Gibson hopes to 'enhance' church teaching with The Resurrection of the Christ

Mel Gibson wants The Resurrection of the Christ to "enhance" the teachings of the church.

The actor-turned-director has been busy working on the sequel to his 2004 film The Passion of the Christ and he has suggested he has looked beyond the traditional stories from the Bible to shine a light on different elements of Jesus Christ's life and work in order to "surprise" audiences.

He told The Christian Post: “If you look at the synoptic Gospels - and they are synoptic, which means they don’t tell you everything.

“And even John says, ‘Y’know, hey, there were many other things [Jesus] said and did which, if they were to be written down, couldn’t fill all the libraries of all the world,’ right? So there’s a lot of stuff that wasn’t written and the Gospels are synoptic.

“One can look at these things and go, ‘I wonder what was around that?’ and try and analyse those things and make suppositions about what might have been.

“Not to go against anything in orthodox teaching but to enhance, I think, what’s there for everyone to see and hopefully they’ll be surprised by some of those revelations.”

The synoptic Gospels are Matthew, Mark and Luke, and refer to the three Gospels that present the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in a similar fashion.

The 70-year-old star also teased the story "gets around" beyond Earth.

He said: “I mean, you’ll be in the firmament before the creation. You’ll be in the Hell of the just, and then you’ll be in the Hell of the damned. And so it jumps around a little bit. It doesn’t just stay on the planet here. It gets around.”

Mel previously declared the two-part Resurrection of the Christ to be a major part of his "life's work".

In a statement to mark the end of filming in May, Mel - who is directing the films - explained: "I’m deeply grateful to my incredibly talented cast and crew for pouring their hearts into this production.

"Together, we created something powerful. This film represents a major part of my life’s work, and it has demanded everything of me as a filmmaker and as an artist.

"This is far more than a film to me. It’s a mission I’ve carried for over twenty years to tell what I believe is the most important story in human history.

"Reuniting with many of my original collaborators from The Passion of the Christ - true masters of their craft - allowed us to bring this story to the screen exactly as I envisioned it."

Part one will debut on 6 May 2027, with the second due on 25 May 2028. Both release dates coincide with Ascension Day, when Christians celebrate the ascension of Jesus into heaven.

The Braveheart star has been working on the sequel for many years and back in 2022, he spoke about the difficulties he was facing in his attempts to bring the story to the big screen.

During an appearance on EWTN's The World Over YouTube show, he explained: "Well it's a huge subject, and it’s not a linear narrative so that in order to have it mean something and resonate for almost anybody that watches it ...

"You have to juxtapose the central event that I’m trying to tell with everything else around it in the future, in the past, and in other realms, and that’s kind of getting a little sci-fi out there.

"It's a big story, it's a difficult concept and it's taken me a long time to focus and find a way to tell that story and really delivers to someone who may not know anything about the central story ..."

Mel went on to reveal he had two finished scripts and struggled to choose between them.

He added: "I've got two scripts ... so I got the pair of them and they're both good ... Plus you have to add your own mojo to it ... and there's a lot of material to draw from, believe me."