Did The Nativity Story kill the biblical epic?

Did The Nativity Story kill the biblical epic? January 2, 2007

The Los Angeles Times posts its own story on the disappointing box-office performance of The Nativity Story ($43.5 million worldwide so far), and the possible consequences thereof:

New Line spent about $65 million making and marketing “The Nativity Story” and probably will make its money back on home video.

But Wyck Godfrey, producer of “The Nativity Story,” fears that his movie’s slow momentum at the box office will discourage others from making large-budget, overtly Christian entertainment.

“We were relieved by how it held up. But it has struck a blow to bigger-budget epic biblical stories,” Godfrey said. “I’m not running out to do the [life of the] Apostle Paul, and I was thinking about doing it before.”

Godfrey was thinking of making a movie about Paul? Interesting, since his fellow producer Marty Bowen was reportedly thinking of making a movie about John the Baptist — before The Nativity Story came out and made it more difficult to pitch such things.

Of course, while the stories of Paul and John may have occasional bits of bloodshed, they are nowhere near as violent as The Passion of the Christ (2004), and the Times quotes an editorial from Christianity Today which complains that The Nativity Story is not as violent — sorry, as “boldly realistic” — as The Passion was. So without the violence, those stories could have been a hard sell anyway. But that doesn’t have to mean that the biblical-epic genre is dead; presumably that King David epic currently being written by J. Michael Straczynski will have its share of battle scenes.


Browse Our Archives

Follow Us!