'Mohammed' - The Second Greatest Story Ever Told

.... But no actor will be in line for an Oscar, because no actor will be playing the Prophet. The film is financially backed by the Qatar-based production company Alnoor Holdings, ‘who have installed the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi (not a joke) to oversee all aspects of the shoot’. So, in accordance with Islamic law, Mohammed will not actually be depicted on screen. They will ‘shoot around’ him (so to speak). [Archbishop Cranmer] Read more

Matrix producer plans Muhammad biopic Barrie Osborne, part of the Oscar-winning team behind the Lord of the Rings films, says the new production 'will educate people about the true meaning of Islam. .... Osborne cast Keanu Reeves as the messiah in The Matrix and helped defeat the dark lord Sauron in his record-breaking Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now the Oscar-winning American film-maker is set to embark on his most perilous quest to date: making a big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad.

Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad's life and examine his teachings. Osborne told Reuters that he envisages it as "an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam". [guardian.co.uk] Read more

Life of Muhammad to be filmed, but don’t expect to see him on screen .... According to the Gulf Times newspaper he told journalists in Doha that the film was a response to “the crusader-styled distortion of Islam [that] continues to influence [the] world population today.”

“I will say we Muslims have not exerted sufficient efforts to correct the fake tales as Christians have used [in] the media. The life of the Prophet Muhammad is richly documented from the cattle he raised to the weapons he used to his private life.” [Times Online] Read more