Camilla Belle is Mary, Mother of Christ

Actress Camilla Belle is one of those girls who have been in a lot of movies, but for some reason has never really made it big. You probably don’t even know her name, even though she’s been in a couple of big hits, including the recent “10,000 BC”, and you always notice her in her movies cause, well, she’s extremely attractive. So what better way to make people pay attention other than to play the mother of Jesus Christ? He is, after all, the Savior of Man, and that’s gotta count for something in the attention getting department. Which brings us to Alejandro Agresti’s latest movie, “Mary, Mother of Christ”, in which Belle will be playing the titular character.

THR has more:

Camilla Belle, who is onscreen in “Push,” which opens Friday, has been cast as Mary. Jonathan Rhys Meyers will take on the double role of Gabriel and Lucifer, while Peter O’Toole is set as Symeon, who meets Mary and her family in the temple shortly after Jesus’ birth.

The filmmakers are seeking Al Pacino and Jessica Lange for the respective roles of Herod and Anna the Prophetess.

Although New Line recently told the story of Jesus’ birth in “The Nativity Story,” released in December 2006, to modest boxoffice returns, Aloe said of her project: “This is not a Christmas movie. This is a part of Mary’s life that has never been shown on the big screen before. It takes us through Mary’s youth, young love, her life as a new mother and the triumph through the absolute terror of Herod the Great’s reign. It is truly a story of real female empowerment.”

To further increase their chances of nabbing the same audience that flocked to Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, the script for “Mary” was co-written by Benedict Fitzgerald, who co-wrote “Passion”. Shooting commences in Morocco in May, with a 2010 release date scheduled.