Christians Are Building Their Own Hollywood

[stromboli]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/christian-film-left-behind-nicolas-cage_n_5901280.html

HAVE NO SPOILERS, NO FLAPS, NO ELEVATORS AND IF I RUN THIS THING DRY, NO REVERSE THRUST!!!"

Nicolas Cage, panicked and bug-eyed, is once again fighting to avert disaster on the big screen, this time as airline pilot Rayford Steele. Fire spews out of a gash in the plane's wing; a chisel-jawed young man attempts to subdue an unruly mob of passengers as a blonde flight attendant is tossed about in her seat. On the ground, cars crash, explosions rock the sky and civilization is engulfed in a wave of panic and anarchy.

"Looks like the end of the world," a man remarks.

What it looks like is typical Hollywood apocalypse porn in the vein of "Deep Impact," "The Day After Tomorrow" or "2012." In this case, however, the end-times event isn't a giant asteroid, catastrophic climate change or a Mayan prophecy come true, but the Rapture, with non-believers abandoned to fend for themselves after Christ's true followers are beamed up to heaven. Based on the series of books by the same name, which were written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins and have sold over 65 million copies since 1995, "Left Behind" delivers all the titillation and destruction we've come to expect from a Hollywood blockbuster.

Yet, despite its A-list razzle dazzle, "Left Behind" was produced outside of Hollywood's traditional orbit. The man primarily responsible for bringing it to the big screen is Paul Lalonde, a Canadian filmmaker who co-produced and co-wrote it. His Ontario-based production company, Stoney Lake Entertainment, is part of an emerging nexus of movie studios that are devoted to creating Christian films.

Movie-making may be synonymous with Los Angeles, but the Christian film industry is scattered across North America. There's Pure Flix Entertainment in Scottsdale, Arizona, Kendrick Brothers Productions in Albany, Georgia, and Five & Two Pictures in Nashville, Tennessee. Culture warriors no less prominent than Glenn Beck and Rick Santorum are trying their hands at film production as well. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator and GOP presidential candidate, became the CEO of EchoLight Studios, in Franklin, Tennessee, in 2013. Earlier this year, Beck announced that he had started renovating a 72,000-square-foot studio in Irving, Texas, which he plans to use for film production.

"I'm much more into culture than I am into politics," the former Fox News host said at the time, "and that's where I intend on making my stand."

For decades, Christian films were defined as much by their shoddy, low-budget production values as by their religious themes and agendas. "Christian movies have historically meant very bad movies," Lalonde said in an interview, "and I can say that as a guy who made some of them."

"Left Behind," by contrast, was produced and marketed to the tune of $31 million. It premieres Friday on 1,750 movie screens around the country. Lalonde hopes it will reach not just a churchgoing audience, but a secular one as well.

"You were just preaching to the choir, which was great, because the choir loved them and we were having fun doing them," Lalonde said of earlier Christian films, "but they never really broke beyond the Christian audience, and that was something I always wanted to do."

The premiere of "Left Behind" is poised to be a watershed moment for the Christian film industry. Not since Mel Gibson's 2004 hit, "The Passion of the Christ," has there been an independent Christian film with a budget comparable to those of Hollywood studio productions. And unlike "Passion," "Left Behind" has a marquee star attached.

While show business is fickle, and the success of "Left Behind" is far from guaranteed, it certainly won't be the last religious movie aiming to score big. Christian filmmakers now have the skills, tools and infrastructure necessary to produce more sophisticated films, and they hope to reach beyond their core fans to a larger, less devout audience. After years in the wilderness, they are finally a force to be reckoned with.

Jesus is ready for His closeup.

This, along with SGOS' "Left Behind" thread. So we're building Noah's Ark with a metal infrastructure and making movies about imaginary shit that won't happen. Let's see how broke and disillusioned all those gawd lovin' xtians will be. 

[stromboli]

Oh yeah- construction has begun on "Ark Encounter" Noah's Ark. With steel girders.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Oh yeah- construction has begun on "Ark Encounter" Noah's Ark. With steel girders.

With no sense of irony either, knowing these folks.

[Hydra009]

I have a question.  Let's say you're a talented director or costume designer or actor and you aren't terribly religious.  Who in their right mind looks at a Christian movie screenplay and says to themselves, "This is my big break!" ?

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I have a question.  Let's say you're a talented director or costume designer or actor and you aren't terribly religious.  Who in their right mind looks at a Christian movie screenplay and says to themselves, "This is my big break!" ?

Someone who needs a paycheck.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Why of course! Because everyone believes Star Trek and the Transformers is real and let's not forget Superman and Godzilla and Bond, James Bond..
Folks, it's a money making scam, they know it, we know it and the rest of the seriously minded residents of earth know it. If it were about anything else the theme of the movies would be feeding the hungry and tending to the sick and so on..

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Because everyone believes Star Trek and the Transformers is real and let's not forget Superman and Godzilla and Bond, James Bond..

Are you trying to imply that Godzilla isn't real?

[stromboli]

65 million copies of a religious-themed book sold worldwide. I went to churches that preached the Rapture. It was an idea thought up by a  christian pastor in 1830, though supposedly described earlier in a 3rd century document (LaHaye)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_of_Pseudo-Ephraem

A translation of a Latin text (with disputed date) of what is purported to be a sermon of Pseudo-Ephraem, by a professor at Tyndale Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, Tx., Cameron Rhoades, is cited by some, to support an early Church reference to the rapture. However, exactly how early is questionable. The Latin text may not date before the 8th-century and may be a conflated text, and not translated directly from either the Syriac or Greek texts.

It is bullshit, it is religious sci-fi, and millions of gullible xtians buy into it wholesale. Another reason I'm no longer a christian. My BS meter went off big time when the Left Behind books came out.

[Munch]

this must be due to the christian victimization.



oh those poor babies.

(Though I do recent atheism and agnosticism being counted under religion here)

[Hydra009]

Someone who needs a paycheck.

Yeah, I suppose but damn, it seems like such a horrible return on your effort.  Generally speaking, it's not going to be a success, let alone a success comparable to normal hollywood films.  Sure, The Passion made a killing (pun not intended), but even secular crapola like Transformers: Age of Extinction has much better sales.  I'm looking at the top grossing list and only a few of them are religious, and all are decades old.

With Christian films, you're looking at a very niche audience with an insatiable appetite for the same story over and over again.  There's not much room to do anything new or interesting.  And these same people will turn on you in a heartbeat if you don't pander to this insane religious right view of how the world works, which I'd imagine is a difficult thing to do in SoCal.  Even assuming you're making a mint, it's gotta be hell to work on this stuff.  Imagine pretending to be an atheist professor and having to say a bunch of painfully stupid lines on set.  It'd take some serious scotch to get through filming.

[Solitary]

I never knew there was a studio doing this in Scottsdale Arizona, but I'm not surprised by one bit. I have a feeling if they make the Testaments realistic they will convert more young believers into atheists. I'd like to see God pulling Adams rib out to make Eve, the serpent talking to the burning bush and donkeys in serpentize. They could even make a XXX one with Lilith funking Adam on top, or Sampson getting his hair cut off making him weak, using Vin Diesel in the role. Or one with the Virgin, Mary played by Paris Hilton, explaining to her mentally challenged parents that she really never funked anyone, that it was a gift from God.     

[AllPurposeAtheist]

'd like to see God pulling Adams rib out to make Eve

then Adam deadpans into the camera, "Women! You can't live with them and you can't stick em back in your ribcage!" 

[Hakurei Reimu]

There are only 10,000 someodd seats in Heaven. While it may cause disruption short term, long term the Rapture would be no big thing.

[Minimalist]

I have a feeling if they make the Testaments realistic they will convert more young believers into atheists.

The OT at least tells some good...if unbelievable....stories.

The NT is boring.  Nothing but pious drivel.

[Hydra009]

The OT at least tells some good...if unbelievable....stories.

The NT is boring.  Nothing but pious drivel.

The sequels are never as good as the original.