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Claim: Steven Spielberg is planning to direct a film about the Crusades.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]
Origins: We don't yet know who penned this piece, but it's clearly a satirical response to the tremendous box office success of (and criticisms regarding anti-Semitism in) producer/director Mel Gibson's film about the last hours of Jesus, The Passion of the Christ. Academy Award-winning 
director Steven Spielberg (who is Jewish) certainly hasn't announced any plans to helm a film about the Crusades, or to undertake any of the other over-the-top projects also mentioned here.
A spokesperson for Steven Spielberg issued the following statement:
A vicious, totally fabricated story has been circulating on internet message boards purporting to be about Steven Spielberg planning graphic films about the Crusades; The Spanish Inquisition; and Hitler and the
Pope. The perpetrators of this hoax go so far as to allude to made-up comments from
(Another director, Ridley Scott is reportedly engaged in filming In fact, Spielberg's only comment on The Passion of the Christ so far has
Declaring himself "too smart to answer a question like that," Steven Spielberg deftly sidestepped the controversy surrounding fellow filmmaker Mel Gibson's box office smash, "The Passion of the Christ," which has been accused of anti-Semitism.
Strangely enough, rumor says that the reverse of this item may be true He said he had yet to see the film, which depicts the last "I certainly am not going to comment based on circumstantial evidence from what I've been hearing and feeling in the last seven or eight days," Spielberg said at a news conference to promote the DVD release of his Oscar-winning Holocaust epic "Schindler's List."
With record box-office receipts for "The Passion of the Christ" rolling in, now might be the time to ask: What will Mel Gibson do for an encore?
Last updated: 6 September 2007
Officially, he is scheduled to do "Mad Max 4." But in light of the controversy surrounding his first religious film, which has grossed more than If the rumors are true, Gibson's next move could be a stroke of genius, at once disarming Jewish critics of "The Passion" and providing an ideal dramatic vehicle. Alan Nierob, a spokesman for Gibson and his Icon Films, confirmed that the filmmaker has spoken in several interviews, including one with Jay Leno on the "Tonight Show," about looking to the Old Testament for stories but said Gibson has not been specific about which stories. [One] rumor flitting through the evangelical world is that the filmmaker intends to plow the profits from "The Passion" into a movie about the central characters of the holiday of Hanukkah, fighters called the Maccabees. Their story is told in sacred writings of the biblical period, although two books of the same name are not officially a part of either testament. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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