About 20 years ago, actor and director Jean-Claude La Marre was looking for his next big thing. His 2003 Western, “Gang of Roses,” starring a majority-Black female cast including Lil’ Kim, was doing surprisingly well on home video. He wanted his next project to be different. Then “The Passion of the Christ” happened. Mel Gibson had financed the movie outside of the Hollywood system for about $30 million. Evangelicals snapped up theater seats like pews on Easter. The film’s success was practically preordained.

Book of Clarence,' Lil Nas X, Mrs. Davis and Black Jesus' resurrection - The Washington Post

“I thought to myself, I’m going to do a Black Jesus movie. It hadn’t been done before,” said La Marre. He would follow Gibson’s model: Raise just under $1 million to make the film independently, tap the country’s massive audience of Black churchgoers to buy tickets, ka-ching. He called the 2006 film, in which he starred as a persecuted Black Jesus, “Color of the Cross.”

The Second Coming of Black Jesus | Religion Dispatches