JesusChrist Tagged Articles at Cinematical

A 13th-place opening weekend doesn't sound good to most studios, but for 20th Century Fox's new Christian division, FoxFaith, it has to sound great. The Ultimate Gift made over $1 million on only 814 screens, which should be encouraging for others in Hollywood still interested in cashing in on success of The Passion of the Christ. Since Mel Gibson's 2003 surprise smash hit about Good Friday, we've seen a flop with the story of Christmas, but there are plenty more holiday origins to bring to the big screen.

Producer Ashok Amritraj is hoping audiences are more interested in the events directly following The Passion of the Christ. He has begun work on Risen -- The Story of the First Easter, which will feature the apostle Peter and his telling of Jesus' resurrection. Amritraj's Hyde Park Entertainment has a deal at Fox, but whether such a big project would be released by FoxFaith, or Fox at all, is not yet decided. Hopefully the film will be completed around the same time as Screen Gems' The Resurrection and MGM's Myriam, Mother of Christ so the three can have an Easter 2008 showdown. In fact, the Weinsteins might want to get in on that action, too.

This Sunday, director James Cameron and archaeologist Simcha Jacobovici will premiere a new documentary on the Discovery Channel entitled "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," which lays out evidence that a well-known holy relic called The Talpiot Tomb is in fact the crypt that once held the bones of Jesus Christ. The press release states that "scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world's foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading scholars, suggests a 2,000-year-old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. The findings also suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have produced a son named Judah." The press release also noted that this could be "the greatest archaeological find in history," since it could satisfy many that, you know, there's no God.

Cameron, Jacobovici and others will hold a news conference at 11:00 a.m today to prepare the world for the documentary. The relics in question are ten coffins, unearthed by a construction crew in the early 1980s in a suburb of Jerusalem. Each of the coffins were preserved in a hidden cave that archaeologists estimate to be 2,000 years old. For the last twenty years, careful analysis has been done to decode the names on the caskets, and here are the names they finally came up with: Jesua, Joseph, Mary, Mary, Matthew, Jofa and Judah. Sounds like the right family tree to me.

Mitochondrial DNA tests have been done on the coffins thought to be that of Jesus and Mary Magdalene at Lakehead University's Paleo-DNA laboratory -- the tests showed that the two individuals had no maternal DNA linkage. Rumor has it that Cameron may actually display the coffins during today's news conference. I'm not going to tell you where in New York Cameron will be speaking, because I don't want you to turn up and assassinate him or anything, but just to comfort the fanatics out there, Cameron hasn't announced any plans to scoop Jesus's DNA off the coffin and resurrect him (again) or anything. So everyone please take this news in stride.

When is it inappropriate to use Christ's name in vain? When you're around Jim Caviezel, of course. It isn't that the actor disapproves, but due to the fact that he played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, cursing the name can have an unintended comical context that changes the meaning of such an exclamation. Tony Scott recently found this out during test screenings of his new movie Deja Vu and had to take out a line of dialogue as a result. During a scene in which Denzel Washington's character comes face-to-face with his foe, played by Caviezel, he says, "Jesus." At that moment, the test audience burst out laughing -- with good reason.

How did Scott and the rest of the makers of Deja Vu overlook such a double meaning with the scene? It is understandable that the line was probably in the script before Caviezel's casting and wasn't noticed after he came on board, but how could it not come to anyone's attention during filming? The only thing I can think of is that the production realized the gag, thought it was fine as a seemingly subtle throwaway and kept it in not anticipating the reaction it would receive. If this is the case, Scott and the rest must never have seen Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I, in which Comicus (Brooks) curses the name Jesus in vain, only to have the real Jesus (John Hurt) reply, "Yes?"

I bet that, when Anne Rice left vampires and witches for the Lord, you thought we wouldn't see any more of her novels make the jump to celluloid, right? Well, you were wrong (And, yes, I was too. We all make mistakes.): The rights to Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt -- the first in a planned quartet about the life of Christ -- have been acquired by Good News Holdings, a production company formed last fall with the stated goal of creating "faith-based content in multimedia formats." [As an aside, I wonder where Rice's passionate return to the church leaves her non-Gothic novels. Because I would officially flip out if someone made a movie of Cry to Heaven or The Feast of All Saints. Though I guess all the gay lovin' in Cry to Heaven might not fit with Rice's current sensibility. Dammit.]

Rice herself has been hired to write the screenplay and, given her tremendous regard for The Passion of the Christ, expect it to be bloody (when possible -- the book only covers Jesus' life from birth to his family's move from Egypt to Nazareth) and realistic. But in English, one hopes. The plan is to have the film in theaters in time for Christmas, 2007.

I was seriously wondering when this would happen. Weren't you? Sony Pictures' Screen Gems division is working on a film that continues the story of Jesus following the events in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Wait, didn't Jesus die at the end of that? Yes, but according to The Bible he returned a few days after dying on the cross, and it is this resurrection that will be the focus of Sony's film, tentatively called The Resurrection. The script is written by TV-movie scribe Lionel Chetwynd and is being produced by Reverend Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind books.

From what it looks like, Sony is going for the gold in no-brainer, easy-money film production. With little more than a release date picked out (Easter, of course) and a guarantee that Christian audiences who stormed theaters for The Passion will be back for Jesus' return, the studio is likely already counting its profits. Since this isn't a real sequel (the first was released by Newmarket Films), it is doubtful that James Caviezel will be back (and after being struck by lightning during production of the first, he should want to stay away). I also will not be surprised if Resurrection is filmed in English instead of the ancient languages spoken in Passion.

Well, I can say one thing for the film, which should go all the way and use the title The Resurrection of the Christ, and that is it should bring about less controversy. With less finger-pointing and much, much, much less violence, it should be important and enjoyable for its audience. I'll just be glad to not have that lump in the back of my dry throat I experienced while watching Passion.