Brad Pitt is set to play the man who killed Jesus Christ.

The 49-year-old actor is said to be in talks to take on the titular role in period drama 'Pontius Pilate', which tells the biblical tale of the man who sentenced the Christian saviour to be killed by crucifixion.

According to Deadline, Brad is expected to sign up quite soon.

The script has been written by 'Woman on Top' scribe Vera Blasi and instead of a straight-ahead biblical story, it describes the titular figure as a ''proud, capable Roman soldier'' whose ''arrogance and inability to grasp the devoutness of the citizenry and its hatred for the Roman occupiers and their pagan gods leads him to make catastrophic decisions'' to allow Jesus to be crucified.

New Testament figures like Caligula, John the Baptist, Salome and Mary Magdalene will also appear in the film.

Explaining how she created her version of Pilate story, Vera previously said: ''You have the available facts from Roman and Jewish history books and the four gospels, and then you are left to speculate, to interpret the character of Pilate and give him a dilemma.

''He seemed a great way to offer context to this very famous event, and if you look at it from the perspective of the Roman governor of that time, it allows for an investigation of the politics of Judea at the time, and what it was like to be occupied by Rome.''