Martin Scorsese Partners With FOX Nation To Host And Executive Produce Religious Docudrama About Saints

Amid news that Martin Scorsese will be following up his Oscar-nominated epic Killers of the Flower Moon with an 80-minute feature about Jesus Christ, the famed director has now announced that he will be hosting and producing a religious docuseries about saints.

According to a release from FOX Nation, Martin Scorsese Presents: THE SAINTS will chronicle the lives of eight men and women who followed their faith to perform “extreme acts of kindness, selflessness, and sacrifice.” Each episode of the series will focus on a single saint, exploring the lives of Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Becket, Moses the Black, John the Baptist, Sebastian, Mary Magdalene, and Maximillian Kolbe.

Scorsese expressed his excitement for the project in a statement, saying, “I’ve lived with the stories of the saints for most of my life, thinking about their words and actions, imagining the worlds they inhabited, the choices they faced, the examples they set. These are stories of eight very different men and women, each of them living through vastly different periods of history and struggling to follow the way of love revealed to them and to us by Jesus’ words in the gospels. I’m so excited that this project is underway, and that I’m working with so many trusted and talented collaborators.”

Jason Klarman, FOX News Media chief digital and marketing officer, praised Scorsese amid news of their partnership. “Having the greatest storyteller tell some of the greatest stories of all time is exactly the kind of exclusive content that is driving FOX Nation’s success. It’s an honor to welcome the world-renowned Martin Scorsese to the FOX Nation platform,” he said.

Martin Scorsese Presents: THE SAINTS will be written by Scorsese’s frequent collaborator Kent Jones and will be directed by Elizabeth Chomko.

The series will comprise eight hour-long episodes. The first four episodes will premiere on the streaming service Sunday, Nov. 16. The second half will premiere in May 2025, “spanning the Holy season,” as the release notes.

This news comes after Scorsese recently revealed that his next project will be based on Shūsaku Endō’s book A Life of Jesus. The film will reportedly be set in the present day, though Scorsese expressed that he “doesn’t want to be locked into a certain period, because he wants the film to feel timeless,” per The Los Angeles Times.

“I’m trying to find a new way to make it more accessible and take away the negative onus of what has been associated with organized religion,” Scorsese said. “Right now, ‘religion,’ you say that word and everyone is up in arms because it’s failed in so many ways. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that the initial impulse was wrong. Let’s get back. Let’s just think about it.”

The film will reportedly be 80 minutes-long and will focus on “Jesus’ core teachings in a way that explores the principles but doesn’t proselytize.”

The LA Times reports the script has already been written. Filming on that project could begin later this year.