Newsbites: Animated Jesus! New studio! Best Pageant Ever! Crown of Thorns! King Raven! Hannibal! Depp as Satan?
Newsbites: Animated Jesus! New studio! Best Pageant Ever! Crown of Thorns! King Raven! Hannibal! Depp as Satan?
A few quick notes on movies (and studios) being made, developed, and dreamed about.
An animated version of the Jesus film is in the works
The Jesus film produced by Campus Crusade in the late 1970s has gone through many permutations over the years: new scenes, new soundtrack, bits of footage re-used in other movies, etc. Now it’s getting an animated remake—or at least a facelift.
Christianity Today reports that Dominic Carola, an animator on Disney films like Mulan and Lilo & Stitch, is developing a 90-minute film that will use some of the audio from the existing Jesus film but will feature all-new visuals.
Carola has already experimented with this technique in animated shorts like 2019’s Legion and 2021’s Chosen Witness, both of which he directed for the Jesus Film Project. Those films note in their credits that they contain “material adapted from other Inspirational Films, Inc. works” that were made as far back as 1979.1
Christianity Today says a lot of thought is going into the “historical accuracy” of the new film, including the appearance of Jesus and his followers:
They’ve done research on the difference between the second floors of first-century homes in Jerusalem and Capernaum. They’ve looked at the exact hue of the colors of the noonday shadows in the Holy Land, the ethnic diversity in the area at the time, and the way the layers of period-accurate clothing would fall on a person’s body. . . .
Those involved in the remake are also thinking very carefully about how to depict Jesus, according to [Jesus Film Project executive director Josh] Newell. Cru leaders have sought feedback from Christians around the globe about Jesus’ skin color, the shape of his nose, and the texture of his hair.
In the original film, most of the actors were from the Middle East, but Jesus himself was played by a white English actor.
The plan is to release the animated Jesus film by Christmas 2025. That’s the same year Angel Studios is planning to release their animated movie about David.
You can read a press release about the animated Jesus film here. You can also sign up for updates via an e-mail list and an app for Apple and Android devices.
December 13 update: Cartoon Brew has some more images from the film, including concept art for Peter, Caiaphas, and Joanna.
Jesus Revolution co-director starts new “values-oriented” studio
Jon Erwin, the co-director of such “faith-based” hits as I Can Only Imagine and Jesus Revolution, is starting a new independent studio called the Wonder Project.
A press release issued last Wednesday says the studio will produce “high-quality, hopeful entertainment tailored for a substantial faith and values-oriented audience.”
Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten, a former YouTube and Netflix executive who will serve as CEO of the new studio, said they plan to “flood the world with hope . . . by telling stories that restore hope in things worth believing in – family, community, God, and America.” (So… they’re going to flood the world with hope in America?)
The company has already raised $75 million in funds from a wide range of investors including Lionsgate, the studio that currently distributes Erwin’s films, and horror-movie mogul Jason Blum (Get Out, Five Nights at Freddy’s, etc.).
The Chosen creator Dallas Jenkins is also one of the company’s “large shareholders” and will serve as a “special advisor” on its projects. (Jenkins is currently directing The Best Christmas Pageant Ever for Erwin and Lionsgate, and his last big-screen movie The Resurrection of Gavin Stone was distributed under Blum’s BH Tilt banner.)
Several of the people involved spoke to Variety about their hopes for the studio.
Of course, what I want to know is if Erwin will finally get around to making that Bible-movie trilogy that he and Lionsgate announced almost five years ago.
Best Christmas Pageant Ever announces its lead actors
Speaking of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever…
Deadline reports that Judy Greer (Halloween Kills) and Pete Holmes (HBO’s Crashing) are playing the Christmas-pageant director and her husband in that film, which is currently being shot in Winnipeg. Ten-year-old British actress Molly Belle Wright is also co-starring, presumably as Greer and Holmes’s daughter.
In the 1983 TV-movie version of the story, the pageant director was played by Loretta Swit (M*A*S*H), and her husband and daughter were played by Vancouver actors Jackson Davies (The Beachcombers) and Fairuza Balk (Return to Oz).
Fox Nation’s Jesus series gets a director
Deadline reports that Nutopia has hired Hereward Pelling to direct its upcoming Fox Nation docuseries about Jesus, which has the working title Jesus Crown of Thorns. Pelling’s credits include Nazi UFO Conspiracy and The Lost Pirate Kingdom.
When I first mentioned this series in October, it was being touted as the start of a “franchise” that will “set Jesus’ life and mission in the context of the intense political backdrop in which he emerged as a revolutionary figure who dared challenge the status quo.”
Nutopia previously produced the 2019 History Channel series Jesus: His Life.
Filmmaker gets the rights to Lawhead’s Robin Hood trilogy
Brent Ryan Green, a filmmaker whose producer credits span everything from Martin Scorsese’s Silence to the God’s Not Dead series and the Lumo Project’s word-for-word adaptations of the gospels, has bought the film and TV rights to Christian author Stephen R. Lawhead’s Robin Hood-themed King Raven series.
Variety has this quote from Green:
“It’s been more than 15 years since I first read ‘Hood’ [the first instalment of the King Raven trilogy] and the desire to adapt this incredible work for the screen has always been with me. This series impacted me in a way few books have. It’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ meets ‘Game of Thrones’ with the heart of C.S. Lewis. I’m looking forward to finally building out the team that can bring this epic story to life.”
This is not the only adaptation of Lawhead’s historical fiction that is currently in the works. The Daily Wire is currently shooting an adaptation of his Arthurian series The Pendragon Cycle in Hungary—or maybe they’ve finished filming it by now?
Tunisians complain about Hannibal casting
Variety reports that some Tunisians are objecting to the casting of Denzel Washington as the legendary military leader Hannibal in an upcoming Netflix movie:
According to French newspaper Courrier International, there are complaints about depicting the Carthaginian general as a Black African being made in the media and the Tunisian parliament. Member of Parliament Yassine Mami has pointed out that Hannibal, who was born in 247 BC in Carthage – now known as Tunis, the Tunisian capital – was of West Asian Semitic origin. “There is a risk of falsifying history: we need to take position on this subject,” the Tunisian politician reportedly stated.
Tunisian culture minister Hayet Ketat-Guermazi is apparently more accommodating, partly because she wants Netflix to shoot at least part of the film in her country. Tunisia was once a popular location for films like Star Wars and Jesus of Nazareth, but apparently it’s not getting a lot of international business right now.
The controversy is reminiscent of how some Egyptians objected to the casting of a black actress as Cleopatra in a Netflix series earlier this year, claiming it was a form of cultural appropriation. Hannibal and Cleopatra both came from North Africa, but Hannibal was presumably descended from the Phoenicians (i.e. Lebanese Canaanites) who founded Carthage in the 9th century BC, while Cleopatra was descended from the Macedonian Greeks who conquered Egypt in the 4th century BC.
So far no one has objected to the fact that Washington is already a few years older than Hannibal was when he died, and a few decades older than Hannibal was when he led the Carthaginian armies during the period that will be covered by the film.
Terry Gilliam wants Johnny Depp to play Satan, save humanity
Terry Gilliam, the Monty Python animator turned director of films like Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, wants Johnny Depp to play Satan in his next film, Carnival at the End of Days. He described the plot to Variety thus:
“This is a simple tale of God wiping out humanity for f***ing up his beautiful garden Earth. There’s only one character who’s trying to save humanity and that’s Satan, because without humanity he’s lost his job and he’s an eternal character and so to live without a job is terrible. So he finds some young people and he tries to convince God that these young people are the new Adam and Eve. God still gets to wipe out humanity. It’s a comedy.”
Gilliam previously directed Depp in 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and 2009’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and he almost made The Man Who Killed Don Quixote with Depp, but the project was cancelled mere days into production, as depicted in the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha. Gilliam eventually got to make the Don Quixote movie in 2018, with Adam Driver in what would have been the Depp role.
Carola also directed Retelling the Good Story: A Day and a Night with Creator Sets Free for the Jesus Film Project. It’s based on the First Nations Version of the New Testament published in 2021, so it does not re-use any of the audio from the 1979 Jesus film.