Christian couple Mark Burnett and Roma Downey are planning to produce a religious drama series called "Messiah" for Netflix.
The drama is still in its early development stages, according to Variety. Burnett and Downey said they plan to set it in the modern day, and it would share the world's reaction to Jesus Christ's miraculous actions in the Middle East.
Burnett and Downey will executive produce "Messiah" together with Andrew Deane. Their company, MGM Television, will not reportedly be involved in the project.
Michael Petroni will serve as the creator of the series. Petroni is well-known for other series such as "Miracles" for ABC, which starred Skeet Ulrich as an investigator working on behalf of the Catholic Church. Petroni is also responsible for the screenplay of the feature film adaptation of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" and the 2011 exorcism horror-drama "The Rite" starring Anthony Hopkins.
As for Burnett and Downey, they produced the faith-based drama "Ben-Hur" just last year. Sadly, the film did not do well in the box office.
Downey really had high hopes for the "Ben-Hur" movie remake, since it had an important message to send out to a world filled with war and strife. "It is our hope and prayer in that moment of (forgiveness) that this message (inspired by the words of Jesus Himself) will resonate out to our country and out to the world," Downey earlier told the Gospel Herald.
She said the movie was all about faith and hope and was made to make every moviegoer come out of the cinema feeling touched by the message of God.
Burnett and Downey have produced several other faith-based series in the past. They were responsible for "The Bible," the TV movie "Women of the Bible" at Lifetime, "A.D. The Bible Continues" on NBC, and "The Dovekeepers" at CBS.
