Are you confusing this with a TV show? Because there was a short-lived series Those Wacky Bahá’ís, filmed in…I want to say the late 60s…
Ahhh… I remember coming home from after-school schlemiel-schtick class to flop on the shag carpet in front of that old B&W Philco, just in time to see the slapstick opening chase sequence and Bahá’u’lláh’s hilarious catch-phrase: “Who NOW are the venerators of the Sassanian emperors, huhhhh?” [cue laugh track, and the dunking of Oreos]
I think Exapno Mapcase’s story explains it best. At least, it makes most sense to me.
Because Hollywood is run by a group of atheistic left wingers and we all know how intolerant and hateful we are. They talk about diversity and intolerance but disagree with them and they will shout you down and try to silence you. Look how many people talked openly of blacklisting Jon Voigt back in 2008 when he endorsed John McCain…the Republican that liberals had spent years saying the GOP should nominate.
Exapno Mapcase’s explanation might make sense if he could tell us what biblical films made after 1970 or so were flops. I can’t think of too many. “Jesus Christ Superstar” in 1973 was the eighth highest grossing film that year. The Passion of the Christ is the 57 highest grossing film in adjusted domestic box office and the highest for a non English language film. How many others have followed it?
That and Exapno Mapcase’s post explain why do you don’t see biblical epics anymore. Also, the biblical epics from the 50s and 60s haven’t aged well. The best you can say about them now is that some of them (like The Ten Commandments) are still entertaining due to camp appeal.
Why do you think anbody would be offended, and why do you think they wuld protest? Religious movies come out all the time without any protests.
How many is it? I don’t recall ever hearing about it. According to IMDB, he’s been working steadily in television since the election, and has a new movie coming out in 2011, so it appears the talk (if there was any talk) was just talk after all.
For a second there, I got my acronyms confused, and was deeply amused by the idea of a staggering, dreadlocked Johnny Depp playing Our Lord and Savior.
I had no memory of this at all. When I Googled it, all I found was that a comment by a non-Hollywood blogger set off the blogosphere, but I never found anything that said anyone in Hollywood actually suggested anything of the sort. If you could provide cites of actual executives in Hollywood talking about blacklisting anyone, your outrage would be justified.
I never made any claim that Biblical epics flopped. I claimed, correctly, that they stopped being made by Hollywood.
I’m still picking up my jaw from the floor at your cite of Jesus Christ Superstar as a counterexample. How less epic can a movie possibly be? And as for offense:
The film stirred up the same complaints, even though changes were made to the script to make it more acceptable.
Jesus Christ Superstar taught producers everywhere that the 60s were over and that religious materials were too touchy to touch. I can’t think of a worse example you could have picked to try to make your case.
Is that a whoosh? Life of Brian was protested against. The Last Temptation of Christ was protested against. *The DaVinci Code *was protested against. The Passion of Christ was protested against. Dogma was protested against. The Golden Compass was protested against. Jesus Christ Superstar was protested against. Religulous was protested against. Goya’s Ghosts was protested against. The Name of the Rose was protested against. The Love Guru was protested against. Saved was protested against. Priest was protested against. Jesus Camp was protested against. The Magdalene Sisters was protested against. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys was protested against.
Fair enough. I thought you were implying that atheists would protest films with a pro-religious message. My mistake.
My favorite was some Christians who protested Footloose because they were offended by the movie depicting a Christian as being somebody who’d get offended by popular entertainment.
If you count the Apocrypha as Scripture then the story of Judith would make one heck of a Biblical epic. Lust, gore, attempted seduction, trickery, and a head hanging on the city wall!
Hmm. Did they do it with good humor and style?
there can be no more ot epics, charlton heston is dead, look how ridiculous gere was as king david. and they’d screw it up with cg, roman soldiers look great in technicolor and panavision. best heston movie The Naked Jungle? army ants treating people like soylent green…
As Sir Laurence Olivier demonstrated in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, being dead is no longer a deterent to appearing in a movie.