An Italian film has rattled soft drinks giant Coca-Cola by depicting Jesus Christ sipping from a can of coke.
The scene is contained in Claudio Malaponti's new movie 7 km da Gerusalemme (7 km from Jerusalem), which comes out this Friday.
The Italian division of Coca-Cola has sent the producers a letter demanding that the scene be cut.
The film revolves around an encounter between advertising executive Alessandro Forte, who is in a midlife crisis, and Jesus, who appears to the businessman on the road to Jerusalem.
At one point, the Jesus figure is in Forte's car and the advertising chief offers him a can of coke.
As Jesus swigs the drink down, Forte exclaims: "What an endorsement!".
Coca-Cola, which is the world's biggest soft drink maker, said in its letter that it strongly objected to the figure of Christ being used for what could be interpreted as publicity purposes.
But its demand that the scene be eliminated is a major headache for the producers.
Cutting the scene out altogether would entail re-editing the film, a near impossible task so close to the release date.
But if the producers choose to ignore the complaint, they could be slapped with a costly international lawsuit.
7 km da Gerusalemme is Malaponti's second feature film after his 1999 movie debut La Grande Prugna (The Big Plum).
The 39-year-old director has mainly focused on producing and writing since then.
