Is There a Remake of Jesus Christ, Superstar in the Works?

The Hollywood Reporter says so.

Universal sang from the mountaintops after the $600 million global success of the Abba musical "Mama Mia" last year. Now the studio could be belting them out about a very different figure: Jesus.

The studio and producer Marc Platt are in active development on a remake of "Jesus Christ Superstar." And there's a director -- at first surprising, but not without its logic -- that Platt and the studio have been talking to: Marc Webb.

If this project really does come to fruition with Universal it will be the first Jesus film to be made by a major studio since Universal's Last Temptation of Christ over 20 years ago.

Of course Jesus Christ, Superstar has been updated more recently than that. There was a fairly awful filmed version of the stage production made at the time of the millennium. If potential director Marc Webb does make a noughties hipster update of the musical hopefully he'll steer well clear of that version of the story with its pouting Jesus and its Nazi-style Pontius Pilate.

Thanks to Peter Chattaway for the tip off.