Yes, that's what I thought when I read it, sounds bizarre doesn't it? Well the story is that Alexandre Aja, while talking about the delays in Piranha 3-D, revealed that he's working on an adaptation of the book by Didier Van Cauwelaert called The Gospel According to Jimmy, and it has a bizarre plot.

Jesus has been cloned by blood taken from the Turin Shroud, and he's now called Jimmy, oh and he's working as a pool cleaner in Los Angeles.

There's controversy galore set for this one as the idea of cloning Jesus is certain to upset organised religious groups galore, but Alexandre Aja is keen to press ahead with the film regardless, and good on him. I can see this being produced outside of Hollywood, but inside of the mainstream American film industry? I doubt it.

Aja has been talking about the project over at SciFi Wire about the film and said:

"You have to imagine, a few years from now, the Republicans want to get back in the White House, and the only thing that they find is like an old cloning project ... to clone Jesus from a blood cell on the Shroud of Turin. And one subject had survived, and he's fixing pools in LA, named Jimmy. And they're going to find him and ask him to come back and help them to get back to power."

I like the idea that it's tied up with politics too, because let's face it, if the corrupt and power hungry politicians found out that this was true they really would be after him, he would be a sure fire ticket winner.

You could see what would happen though, the religious groups would be racing after him too, some to hide him, some to make him into the figure that they want to see, and all with varying degrees of religious fever.

It might be an interesting idea, and a cool film, and makes a huge departure for Aja from the projects he's been working on, however in the meantime we're waiting for Piranha 3-D, well some people are.

He reveals that the project has been delayed because they couldn't have the cast and crew filming constantly in freezing waters in order to make a summer release, so the date was moved. Personally I'd rather see him leap forward to The Gospel According to Jimmy (Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.com).