When Jesus and his followers joyfully arrive in Jerusalem, he rejects both Caiaphas' orders to disband the crowd and the suggestions of Simon and fellow Zealots to start an uprising against their Roman occupiers.

Jesus visits the Temple, where he becomes enraged seeing it full of money lenders and merchants and forces them all to leave by destroying their stalls, much to Judas' horror.

The apostles gather in the garden for Passover Seder with Jesus, who expresses scepticism about their loyalties, stating that Peter will deny him and Judas will betray him.

At that time, the LP, despite its title song being a hit single, was "met with a massive dose of British indifference, even condescension", recalled Webber, and was thought of by Fiddler on the Roof producer Patrick Palmer as an "obscure album from England" when Jewison first obtained it.

[7] Jewison described himself as "curiously moved" and "flooded with exciting visual images" when first hearing the record, amazed by its ability to execute so much without spoken lines.

[7][8]: 216  He first publicly expressed interest in directing a film based on the album in an interview at the New York premiere of Fiddler on the Roof: "I could see it as an exciting innovative movie just as it was—just music and lyrics, no dialogue.

[7] Webber agreed to the film project, citing Jewison's experience with Fiddler on the Roof, an adaptation of a musical with religious themes.

His vision was an epic film in the style of Ben-Hur (1959), summarizing his workflow as figuring out "which massive visual effect accompanied which song".

[7] Alongside Melvyn Bragg, Jewison wrote a screenplay as a pastiche that combined biblical and modern elements of culture, particularly with its theater group framing device.

[9] Bragg and Jewison wrote the script while scouting locations, as moving around deserts in Israel while the concept album played on a tape recorder immersed them in the film's setting.

According to casting notes Jewison wrote on stationery paper at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he considered Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Barry Gibb, Robert Plant, and Ian Gillan for the titular character.

[7] Gillan, who played Jesus on the concept album, turned down Jewison's offer because he thought he would please fans more by touring with Deep Purple.

However, Neeley, wearing Levi's clothing and a fake mustache and beard, encountered Jewison at a motel the next morning to apologize about his absence from the performance, his rationale being illness.

[7] Following a 20-minute meeting, and without seeing Neeley perform the part, Jewison said to his production partner Pat Palmer that "I had a hunch that I had found our Jesus".

[13] Nassour and Broderick noted Gospel Road, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Godspell in particular, deviated from the Cecil B. DeMille drama style typical of earlier mainstream religious films.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Jesus Christ Superstar has too much spunk to fall into sacrilege, but miscasting and tonal monotony halts this musical's groove.

[18] Conversely, Howard Thompson of The New York Times wrote, "Broadway and Israel meet head on and disastrously in the movie version of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, produced in the Biblical locale.

The mod-pop glitter, the musical frenzy and the neon tubing of this super-hot stage bonanza encasing the Greatest Story are now painfully magnified, laid bare and ultimately patched beneath the blue, majestic Israeli sky, as if by a natural judgment.

[22] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The faults are relative, the costs of an admirable seeking after excellence, and the many strong scenes, visually and dramatically, in 'Superstar' have remarkable impact: the chaos of the temple, the clawing lepers, the rubrics of the crucifixion itself.

[6] As a New York Times article reported, "When the stage production opened in October 1971, it was criticized not only by some Jews as anti-Semitic, but also by some Catholics and Protestants as blasphemous in its portrayal of Jesus as a young man who might even be interested in sex".

[27] A few days before the film version's release, the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council described it as an "insidious work" that was "worse than the stage play" in dramatizing "the old falsehood of the Jews' collective responsibility for the death of Jesus", and said it would revive "religious sources of anti-Semitism".

"[45]: 2  According to Jaime Clark-Soles, Jesus Christ Superstars "continues to captivate and provoke viewers", with perspectives ranging from it being a "mere cultural artifact", to being "a political statement that still enjoys some relevance", to being "an existential journey of sorts".

[46]: 145 Atom Egoyan, an Armenian-Canadian director most known for The Sweet Hereafter (1997), repeatedly viewed Jesus Christ Superstar at the Haida Cinema in Victoria, British Columbia.

[46]: 142, 144  Mary's character, on the other hand, is different from any scripture, "a mulatto whore who is a site of contest between two alpha males", wrote Clark-Soles.

[46]: 141  The market in "The Temple" has ancient goods such as birds and sheep sold alongside mirrors, weapons, grenades, guns and drugs.

[46]: 140 Although interpreting biblical scripture to comment on contemporaneous political social issues is a common aspect of religious films, Jesus Christ Superstar is one of few to encompass several subjects at once.

[49] There is an anti-war and Vietnam War sentiment, with machine-gun-armed soldiers in military uniform, thieves trading grenades, machine guns and drugs, and Judas encountering tanks and fighter jets.

[49] The use of a black actor for Judas adds a civil rights movement component, most displayed in his suicide where he hangs himself with a rope on a tree, reminiscent of the lynchings associated with the era.

"[46]: 142 In a 2008 interview with Variety magazine, film producer Marc Platt stated that he was in discussions with several filmmakers for a remake of Jesus Christ Superstar.

[50] In 2013, a Blu-ray "40th Anniversary" edition of the film was released, featuring commentary from the director and Ted Neeley, an interview with Tim Rice, a photo gallery and a clip of the original trailer.