Nordling here.
He's talked about making a movie on the life of Jesus Christ for years, but it appears that Paul Verhoeven has his financing in place and also a screenwriter, according to Deadline. His Christ story won't be so much about the miracles or his divinity, but more about how Jesus changed the political scheme in Israel at the time.
Verhoeven wrote JESUS OF NAZARETH, which supposes that instead of a divine birth, Jesus was the product of a rape by a Roman soldier. As a prophet, Jesus railed against the Roman Empire and was crucified because of his radical politics, and Verhoeven spent years researching the subject. Now he has a financial backer in Chris Hanley (Muse Productions) and Roger Avary of PULP FICTION will be doing the script.
I can see the jokes coming now, considering who Verhoeven and Avary are, but apparently this is a very serious subject for the director, and I think he'll treat this obviously sensitive subject fairly. You don't have to share Paul Verhoeven's worldview on the subject, and I'd imagine that easily offended people should likely just steer clear. According to the Deadline article. Verhoeven intends on making a film about the power of Jesus's sacrifice without the miracles surrounding it, and that "...it’s not about miracles, it’s about a new set of ethics, an openness towards the world, which was anathema in a Roman-dominated world. I believe he was crucified because they felt that politically, he was a dangerous person whose following was getting bigger and bigger. Jesus’ ideals are about the utopia of human behavior, about how we should treat each other, how we should step into the shoes of our enemy."
