It’s easy to mock some of the biggest actors on the planet, Will Smith, Tom Cruise. Some of these larger-than-life personalities are often disconnected from the real world. And so say what you want about Brad Pitt, his marriage to another worldwide superstar Angelina Jolie and his brood of children. The fact, is if you’re paying attention, you’ll see that Pitt is not unlike Megan Ellison’s Annapurna—a patron of the arts and cinema. Pitt’s production company Plan B Entertainment has helped get several films off the ground including Terrence Malick’s “The Tree Of Life,” “Voyage Of Time,” Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly,” Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave,” Barry Jenkins’ upcoming “Moonlight” and James Gray’s “The Lost City Of Z.”
And so Pitt and his company are constantly developing projects that the actor would like to see onscreen. One of them that Pitt recently talked about to T: The New York Times Style Magazine, is a movie about Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who essentially put Jesus to his death by washing his hands of any judgment and letting the mob take action as judge, jury and executioner. Pitt was initially attached to this about three years back, and was thought to have fallen off, but it sounds like it’s still a going concern.
But Pitt was quick to distance himself from the most successful-ever Biblical epic, Mel Gibson’s “The Passion Of The Christ,” which obviously also features Pontius Pilate in it. “It certainly won’t be for the ‘Passion’ crowd,” he said about his for dislike of Mel Gibson’s film. And then with a laugh he added, “I felt like I was just watching an L. Ron Hubbard propaganda film,” though to be fair he did praise Gibson’s later “Apocalypto” which he called “a great film.”
The movie will apparently focus on a “mediocre Roman official stuck in the middle of nowhere with difficult people he doesn’t like. Jesus doesn’t get much screen time.” It apparently makes Pitt smile and it kind of sounds like a Coen-esque comedy based on that description.
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The Times also said Pitt’s Netflix movie “War Machine” directed by David Michôd is coming out this fall, but well, that remains to be seen (we’ve been hearing its going to be pushed to 2017 for a long time now).
Pitt also talked Donald Trump (not a fan, obviously) and feeling old on the set of “Fury” thanks to 21-year-old Logan Lerman. Pitt will next be seen in “Allied,” Robert Zemeckis’ WWII movie co-starring Marion Cotillard. It’s a possible Oscar player and we’ll see it on November 23.
What do you think of Pitt’s comments of ‘Passion,’ fair? And are you interested in seeing a more cinephile-friendly version of a Pontius Pilot story? Sound off in the comments below.