In a room hidden behind a bookcase are a fireman’s pole and enough foosball tables to conjure enough writerly thoughts for several stars to be born.

- Christ, have you seen the numbers? They’re not good. They’re in the red. We might go under. We need a tentpole.

- An ark? No, think bigger than Russell Crowe.

- Yes, I know Passion of the Christ is already a thing, and you’re right about Mel Gibson. Maybe we could do something less anti-Semitic.

- We could ditch the Aramaic.

- Yes, that’s it. Subtitles do not do well in focus groups. We want something that doesn’t need translating. It needs to be universal. Hope. Fear. More hope, though.

- Can we make the Parables funnier or at least get a funny disciple or two?

- Why not?

- What about the prophets?

- Let’s start with the prophets. The whole Bible is books and none of them are copyrighted. We could even write some of our own—call them The Lost Scrolls.

- We could do like King James cameos.

- Yeah, I think he’s the Stan Lee for this. Anyway, we start with prophets. We do each one. Like Isaiah and Jeremiah and that guy with the last name Smith. That would allow us to do some time traveling.

- That’s how we could explain transfiguration.

- I like it.

- We could have them all culminate into a big spectacular event titled The Gospel.

- Do we need a subtitle? Like maybe put a colon between The Gospel and whatever else we might call the other four.

- That sounds like—

- No, we don’t do all four. Each one basically reboots the one before it with no major changes. Let’s not waste anybody’s time.

- Does each disciple get a movie?

- That’s like thirteen movies. Seems unlucky. How many years would that take?

- What if we watch Jesus age in real time?

- Like Boyhood?

- Like Boyhood.

- Maybe we could do a whole show on David and his offspring. Like a family drama of people we’re not sure we like.

- HBO might be into it.

- HBO would love it.

- Maybe we go back to before Saul.

- Don’t use Saul in the title. That might confuse people. There’s that prequel already out there.

- But this is our prequel. It could be like our Game of Thrones. Call it Kings or something.

- We need someone to oversee it all.

- Yeah, there are some contradictions and continuity issues. Fans hate that. Questions need answering.

- Back to the Jesus thing, because I think he’s really at the center of all this. I don’t like the Boyhood idea. That would take over thirty years. I think the material we have is good enough to keep people interested, but I don’t know if it’s that good. Maybe we do like a Young Indiana Jones thing and call it Jesus: The Lost Years.

- Or The LOST JESUS.

- Or WWJD WHEN HE WAS JUST A BOY.

- Sure, and it’s like him doing carpentry and calling time out, and everybody just stops.

- We could make him a Jedi, but more discreet.

- Same robes, I guess.

- Project Runway crossovers.

- Oh, yeah, totally. There are definitely some women characters to be developed.

- Who’s the Black Widow in all this?

- What if she’s an actual widow? I think there’s stuff in the Bible about that. Look it up.

- Do we need a Wikipedia for fans? I think that would be good for letting them know what’s canon and what’s not.

- We probably treat Mary more like Aunt May in Spider-Man.

- Is she a widow?

- Sort of. We could also do some stuff with Ruth and Rachel and Bathsheba.

- She’ll probably be in the David series.

- You’re right. Do they all know each other?

- Maybe. How do we handle all the dream stuff? Like, we could get Freudian with it. We could make people question reality. Hey, my name’s John, but is it really? Am I having a Revelation, or is this happening?

- Should we divide the characters into tiers? Is Abraham on the A-squad or the B-squad? I’m noticing a pattern here. He has like a dozen sons. Maybe we make that number an Easter egg.

- What do we do with Paul? I’ve been playing around with the title Better Call Paul. I think that’s more fun than just calling a movie The Apostle.

- I’m picturing Robert Duvall in the role.

- He’s ancient. Try somebody else.

- We’ve already talked to Sean Bean, and he’s confident he can deliver on the John the Baptist role. If not that, then definitely Judas. He says he’s ripe for either.