Hollywood Declares 2014 The Year of The Bible
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 16, 2014
Russell Crowe is Noah. Christian Bale is Moses. Brad Pitt is Pontius Pilate. With pages of action and a faithful fanbase, Hollywood is mining the good book for blockbuster stories.
Pop quiz: How many of the top 15 highest-U.S.-grossing movies of all time—adjusted for inflation—star comic-book characters?
Answer: Zero.
And how many are based on the Bible?
Answer: Two.
In the late 1950s, The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur teamed up for $1.795 billion in adjusted domestic ticket sales. That’s more than Avatar, The Dark Knight, and Transformers combined.
Which may explain, at least in part, why the movie industry seems—unofficially, of course—to have declared 2014 The Year of the Bible.
Over the next 11 months, Hollywood is planning to release more big Biblical movies than it put out during the previous 11 years combined, and the trend shows no sign of slowing down in 2015 (or beyond). For an industry that spent much of the 2000s shying away from explicitly religious fare—the controversy over the alleged anti-Semitism of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ effectively wiped out the genre, despite the film’s huge box office receipts—it’s a remarkable about-face that’s as surprising as it is sudden.
The 2014 Release Schedule:
Son of God
On Feb. 28, Twentieth Century Fox is first out of the gate with Son of God, a Jesus biopic culled from the History Channel’s hit 2013 miniseries The Bible. (A Bible sequel titled A.D. is set to air next year on NBC.)
Noah
Paramount is up next in March with Noah, director Darren Aronofsky’s epic re-imagining of the life of the Old Testament’s most famous ark-builder (played by Russell Crowe).
Heaven Is For Real
Debuting in April is Heaven is for Real, starring Greg Kinnear as the father of a boy who claims to have passed through the pearly gates during a near-death experience.
The Mother of God drama Mary (Ben Kingsley, Julia Ormond)
Trailer coming soon
Exodus
and Ridley Scott’s Exodus (Christian Bale, Aaron Paul) follow in December
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 
Leave a Reply