Development hell has been a concept for as long as films have been in production, but in the case of Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, that hell manifested itself in a startlingly religious form as, according to an interview with Film Comment, increasing budgets and religious protests challenged the hopes of a wide release while it was being produced.
Considered by many to be among the best of Scorsese’s historical epics, The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 film adaptation of Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis’ wildly controversial 1955 novel of the same name.
Given that the book suffered the same scrutiny that the film would later be attacked with, Scorsese should have prepared himself for a challenging production cycle, but what is it about The Last Temptation that makes it so religiously obscene, and just how did Scorsese eventually pull through to, against all odds, get it made?…
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