I want to add to this again. There are two films that I have the deep interest in making.
The first being FINALLY a big budget fantasy-esque version of The Pilgrim's Progress, complete with epic sequences of fighting (whenever Christian does so in the book). Additionally, the character Faithful will be gender swapped to be a woman. While the character is not crucified, she does have a gruesomely erotic death.
"
They scourged her (using the female pronoun for this quote)
, they buffeted her, they stoned her and slashed her with knives, they pierced her with swords, finally they tied her to a stake and burned her to ashes. Thus Faithful came to an end"
The next one would be the overdue remake of the film Quo Vadis. (not to disparage the rather good Polish remake, which does include topless women on crosses), but I would want to combine the sheer scale of the 50s religious epics, with the stylized sex and violence of the TV show Spartacus.
In particular I would want to visually illustrate the masterpiece from the Polish painter Jan Styka "The martyrdom of Christians in Nero’ circus”. (seen here). I would do a 1917-style long take that sweeps through the arena at a decently slow pace, lingering on the nailing and raising of any characters that had had a role previously in the film, before pulling out to a wide shot that, at the right second, literally recreates this image.
After that, I would have one of the crucified girls begin to sing (think a Celtic Woman single voice style hymm). The audio of her single voice will raise so that the sounds of hammering and wailing slowly disappear. She makes it through the first verse before stopping and gasping for air, at which the rest of the martyrs raise thier voices in song, with sweeping areal shots and cuts to a stunned & silent (and in a few cases, weeping) crowd, and a cowering Nero.