Hollywood gets religion

The greatest story ever told is increasingly becoming the stuff of movie scripts. But are such movies, including recent release on the life of Queen Esther and a film on the Nativity opening Dec. 1, up to snuff?

“The Nativity Story,” a character study of what the birth of Jesus was like for Mary and her fiance, Joseph, has already struck gold with Roman Catholics. On Nov. 26, it will be the first feature film ever to premiere at the Vatican. Although the pope’s attendance has not been confirmed, 7,000 guests have been invited.

John Rich, screenwriter of “The Nativity Story,” predicts similar films will follow. The life of the Apostle Paul, John the Baptist, the 40 days between Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension — those are some of the ideas on the table.

“The faith-based community is a powerful demographic, but they are a discerning demographic, too,” he said. “You’ve got to get the story right. This door is open just a little bit right now. If we don’t get it right and deliver really good quality films, then who knows what will happen.”

The films that have done well have been produced and written by religious insiders themselves. Matthew Crouch, 44, producer of “One Night With the King,” the story of Queen Esther, is the son of Pentecostal broadcaster Paul Crouch.

Although his film only cost $18.5 million and opened on a modest number of screens (909) on Oct. 13, it’s managed to gross more than $12 million. Mr. Crouch said six studios have since contacted his Gener8Xion Entertainment Inc. for advice.

“Major studios are scrambling to get someone on staff who can understand the faith-based world and lead the charge to get them into this emerging transmarket,” he says.

“Hollywood is understanding that if they do a film that doesn’t violate the Christian faith, they’ll interest the 80 million people in our faith demographic. ‘The Passion of the Christ’ showed Hollywood the size of that market.”

Filmed in the sumptuous palaces of Jodhpur, India, his film has gotten mixed reviews. While Variety magazine pronounced it “a surprisingly satisfying attempt to revive the old Hollywood tradition of lavishly appointed biblical epics aimed at mainstream audiences,” freelance critic the Rev. Richard Kew, an Episcopal priest, called it “a poor remake of an aging religious blockbuster.” Mr. Kew said the movie “softened the edges and missed the subtleties.”

Still, “the Christian evangelical market is coming out for feature films,” said Martin Doblmeier, an independent filmmaker based in Alexandria. “It’s a huge marketplace and identifies itself with the use of film in sharing the message because film is the language of today. You don’t see that in the mainline churches.”

When he tried to interest a distributor in his 2003 film, “Bonhoeffer,” about the World War II Protestant martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “He looked at it and said, ‘If you had come to me 10 years ago, I don’t know if I would have taken a chance on this.’ ”

But the distributor snapped up the film, which grossed $500,000.

“The films I’m trying to do are films that test what you believe,” Mr. Doblmeier says. “We’re called to live out faith in the real world, which is cruel and confusing. Bonhoeffer had huge moral issues he was facing.”

Mr. Rich, the Portland, Ore., screenwriter who came up with the idea for “The Nativity Story,” wanted to fill in the blanks where Scripture is silent. When Mary breaks the news to her parents that she is pregnant, the script includes a shouting match.

“The thing that jumped out at me was the fact the Nativity story was told in a very linear way. I wanted a more character-based approach,” he says.

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