Mark Burnett, the executive producer of Survivor, The Voice and Celebrity Apprentice, is moving on to bigger and better things this year with The Bible, a 10-hour miniseries he’s made for the History Channel. Burnett and his wife and co-producer, Roma Downey (of Touched by an Angel fame), filmed the series in Morocco and say they’ve paid important attention to detail, both in terms of creative production and biblical accuracy.
“It’s the most important sacred text,” Burnett said. “Without this, Shakespeare wouldn’t have existed—let alone Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.”
He also notes they’ve made a concerted effort to ensure the series will appeal to people of all walks of faith. “We’ve worked for three years on this,” Burnett says. “We love it. We believe in it. There’s a responsibility to the world to bring fresh life into this.”
Downey will play Mary, the mother of Jesus, but the rest of the show is made up of relative unknowns. The role of Jesus went to a Portuguese actor named Diogo Morgado who, apparently, was all but cast on sight. Burnett hasn’t given the exact budget he’s working with but says, “This looks like a feature film. It looks like a $100-million-dollar feature film.”
