Newsbites: Judas' Gospel reviewed! Light of the World! The King of Kings! Noah!
Also: a possible update on the release date for The Carpenter's Son.
Judas’ Gospel — the first review (singular) is here
Judas’ Gospel premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland this week, and… I’ve managed to find only one review of it so far. Here’s a portion of what Marko Stojiljković had to say about it at Cineuropa (emphasis added):1
[Judas, depicted in this film as] the half-brother of Mary Magdalene, was born in a brothel to a prostitute mother and an unknown father. His first “crime” was his birth, since both his mother and his twin did not survive it. As a boy, he killed the brothel owner who abused him and his sidekick and took over the business of trading people’s bodies. He became a wealthy, unscrupulous man, until his half-sister fell for the teachings of the new prophet. He, too, got interested in them, to the point that he renounced his life and wealth.
However, after that promising first third of the movie, depicting an atmosphere of decadence and debauchery and done with some cheek and sleaze, the story falls back into the tracks of what we already know from cultural history. Although it is now completely told from Judas’ perspective (quite literally so, as his is the only speaking part in the film), viewers will have few new insights into the well known tale. Paradoxically, there is not enough of Judas and his personality in Judas’ Gospel.
The part about Judas being the only character who speaks makes this movie sound a bit more arty than I was expecting.
And the part about the film starting on a new, original note and then becoming a lot more familiar reminds me of how the first half of Risen depicted the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection from an outsider’s perspective—that of a Roman who investigates the disappearance of Jesus’ body—and then the second half basically became a familiar series of post-Resurrection appearances and the like, just with an extra character in tow.
Anyway, I’ll be interested to see this film if it ever becomes available near me (either theatrically or digitally). But I have no idea when that might be.
Light of the World — the filmmakers speak!
Beliefnet has a new interview with John Schafer and Tom Bancroft, the co-directors of Light of the World, an animated Jesus movie coming to theatres September 5.
A few sample quotes:
John Schafer: . . . We had an idea of wanting to approach it from a young child’s perspective. Instead of (telling the story from) Jesus’ point of view, we wanted it to be a young character following Jesus. We thought, “Hey, it makes perfect sense to make it John, the youngest of all the apostles.[”] . . . Also we wanted to make it feel like a children’s storybook come to life…We knew the only way to achieve that look and feel was through 2D animation. That’s why we went that direction. . . .
Tom Bancroft: . . . In the research that we did, we discovered that many of the biblical researchers and historians said John was the youngest of the apostles – and that, unlike a lot of the very famous Renaissance paintings that we see, all of the apostles were pretty young. Peter, probably being one of the oldest, was in his twenties. So, therefore, John being the youngest could be about 13 or 14 which is about where we landed for the movie.
John: To add to that, we don’t state in the film that he’s 13 but internally that’s what [we] kept him at. At 13 in the Jewish culture, he’s coming into adulthood. So, this is kind of a coming-of-age film. . . . By the end of the film, you see this boy who is going to become the man to write (some of) the Gospels. We really feel we completed that story arc.
More information about Light of the World is available at LightoftheWorld.com.
The King of Kings passes 1.2 million admissions in South Korea
Time for yet another update on The King of Kings’ South Korean release.
The last time we checked in on the film, which opened in its native South Korea July 16, it had sold 1,100,000 tickets in its first twenty-five days. Since then…
It reached 1,200,000 admissions on its 31st day (Friday, August 15)
Its total currently stands at 1,224,398 admissions after 32 days.
The King of Kings is now very, very close to passing Heartsping: Teenieping of Love (2024, 1.24 million admissions) to become the 2nd-most-successful South Korean animated movie ever within its home country,2 behind Leafie, A Hen into the Wild (2011, 2.22 million admissions). It will probably pass Heartsping within the next day or two.
Can it pass Leafie too? Doubtful: at this point in its release, Leafie had already reached 1.9 million admissions. But we’ll see.
As far as this year’s box-office stats are concerned, The King of Kings is still the top-grossing animated movie (from any country) in South Korea this year, and it is still the 16th-highest-grossing movie of any sort in South Korea this year. It has been one of the top five films in the country nearly every day of its release.3
The film’s global total now stands at $77 million, of which $60.3 million is from the US & Canada and $8.3 million is from South Korea.
Sight & Sound to release new 30th anniversary version of Noah
Sight & Sound, a Pennsylvania-based theatre company that specializes in big biblical spectaculars, is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its flagship (uh, no pun intended) musical Noah with a week-long release of Noah - Live! next month.
The film, which was recorded in front of a live audience, will be distributed by Fathom Entertainment September 18-24. It is the sixth collaboration between Sight & Sound and Fathom since Jonah: On Stage! came out in 2017.
I interviewed a few people at Sight & Sound back when they were just starting to put their films in theatres. (Prior to that, they released them straight to DVD.) You can read those interviews here:
My interview with S&S corporate communications manager Katie Miller when Jonah: On Stage! came out in 2017.
My interview with S&S president John Enck and S&S brand manager Dean Sell when an earlier version of Noah came out in 2019.
You can watch a trailer for the new version of Noah here:
The Carpenter’s Son delayed to October…?
Remember The Carpenter’s Son? That’s the horror movie inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, starring Nicolas Cage as “the Carpenter” (i.e. Joseph), FKA twigs as “the Mother” (i.e. Mary), and Noah Jupe as “the Boy” (i.e. Jesus).
Last month, when I checked the film’s IMDb page to see if it had a release date yet, I saw that it was supposedly going to come out in Argentina August 14. That would have been two days ago, so I checked the IMDb page again this week, and saw that the film is now supposedly coming out in Argentina and Mexico October 30.
That’s only a little more than two months from now, so hopefully we’ll see something in the way of photos, posters, trailers, or other marketing materials soon.
And maybe Magnolia, the indie distributor that bought the film’s US rights last May, could announce some release plans too? Last spring, it was said that they planned to release the film later this year, and there’s only a few months left, now…
Upcoming Bible movies and TV shows:
September 5, 2025 — Light of the World (theatrical: Salvation Poem Project)
September 6, 2025 — You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution... (theatrical: Toronto International Film Festival)
September 18, 2025 — Sight & Sound Presents: Noah - Live! (theatrical: Fathom)
September 26, 2025 — Ruth & Boaz (streaming: Netflix)
Fall 2025 — House of David: Season 2 (streaming: Prime Video - Wonder Project)
November 2025 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 1 (streaming: Fox Nation)
December 19, 2025 — Zero A.D. (theatrical: Angel Studios)
2025 (no month specified) — The Carpenter’s Son (theatrical: Magnolia)
2025 (no month specified) — The Chosen Adventures (streaming)
2025 (no month specified) — The Promised Land: Season 1 (streaming)
March 22-April 5, 2026 — The Faithful (television: Fox)
April-May 2026 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 2 (streaming: Fox Nation)
second half of 2026 — The Chosen: Season 6: Episodes 1-6 (streaming: Prime Video)
March 12, 2027 — The Chosen: Season 6: Finale (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
March 26, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One (theatrical: Lionsgate)
May 6, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part Two (theatrical: Lionsgate)
March 31, 2028 — The Chosen: Season 7: Premiere (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
no release date specified — David (theatrical)
no release date specified — Jacob (theatrical: Angel Studios)
no release date specified — Joseph of Egypt (streaming: Prime Video)
who knows when Malick will finish it — The Way of the Wind (theatrical)
Stojiljković begins his review by saying “nobody had yet bothered to tell [the story of Jesus] from the side of Judas Iscariot,” but that’s not accurate: Just off the top of my head, I can think of Lux Vide’s Close to Jesus: Judas (2001), the TV-movie Judas (2004), and Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche’s The Story of Judas (2015); and then there are films like Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) that privilege Judas’s perspective too (he sings the opening song and the title song…).
I almost said “The King of Kings is now very, very close to passing Heartsping . . . to become the 2nd-highest-grossing”, but apparently it has already passed Heartsping in dollar amounts: $8.3mil (based on 1.22mil admissions) vs $8.01mil (based on 1.24mil admissions).