Usually when I say Mary Mother of Christ, it’s due to a bout with Tourette’s or just after smashing my thumb with a hammer.  In this case, the film is actually a prequel of sorts to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. The Alister Grierson-directed picture has reportedly interested Sir Ben Kingsley, who is eyeing the role of King Herod.  The story involves Mary’s impassioned defiance of the King in order to save her son, Jesus.  Mary Mother of Christ was written by Barbara Nicolosi and Benedict Fitzgerald, who co-wrote The Passion of the Christ with Gibson.  Hit the jump for more on this picture.

In what some may see as an attempt to recapture the Oscar/box office magic of Slumdog Millionaire, Fox Searchlight will adapt the Deborah Moggach novel These Foolish Things for the screen.  With the new title The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the film will follow “a movie about a group of British senior citizens who travel to India to live out their dotage — an outsourcing, after a fashion — and find a new lease on life.”

24 Frames reports that Fox Searchlight is reaching out to Julie Christie, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, and Peter O’Toole to star. (For those keeping track, there are twenty Oscar nominations in that group.)  Meanwhile, Slumdog star Dev Patel is in talks to co-star, and John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) is on the top of the studio’s director wishlist.  Hit the jump for the synopsis for These Foolish Things.

Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria Parker, Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), Peter O’ Toole, and Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek) will star in the Mexican historical epic Cristiada.  Variety reports that the film centers on the 1926-1929 Cristero War, “touched off by a rebellion over the Mexican government’s 1917 attempt to remove the influence of the Catholic Church and secularize the country.”  Chronicles of Narnia visual FX supervisor Dean Wright will direct the film from a script he wrote with Michael James Love.  The film also stars Oscar Isaac (Robin Hood) and Nestor Carbonell (Lost).