After India and the United States, can you name the country with the third-largest film industry in the world? The answer is Nigeria, where up to 1,200 low-budget straight-to-video movies are produced every year — many of which have Christian themes or are produced by churches. Despite its prodigious output, no Nigerian film had been released theatrically in its native country since 1979 — but Variety reported last week that that changed recently thanks to a film called The Amazing... Read more
Seven years ago, I attended a press conference with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had made a point of coming back to Vancouver to promote The 6th Day (2000; my review) in the city where this, his latest sci-fi action movie, had been shot. Someone asked him how he felt about “runaway productions” — i.e. Hollywood films that are shot outside of California, usually for budgetary reasons — and Arnold, in his smooth-talking way, pooh-poohed the people who made such a huge... Read more
As Legendary Pictures continues to develop its adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost — which depicts the creation of Adam and Eve and their subsequent fall and expulsion from the Garden of Eden — another studio is asking itself, “Hmmm, what if Adam and Eve were to walk among us today?” Reports Variety: Disney has made a preemptive six-figure purchase of “All About Adam,” a spec script by Alan Schoolcraft and Brent Simons. Scott Rudin will produce the project. Spec... Read more
The Associated Press reports: Pope Benedict . . . also approved martyrdom Friday for 188 Japanese who were decapitated, burned at the stake or scalded to death in volcanic hot springs in the early 1700s. Among them was a Jesuit priest, Peter Kibe, a convert to Christianity whose work as a missionary was opposed by authorities. He and the other Japanese died for refusing to renounce their faith. . . . Being declared a martyr, which means the men died... Read more
Okay, why have I never heard of this before. I was searching for info on something else tonight when I stumbled across Das Jesus Video (2002), a German mini-series that was released in North America last year under the title Ancient Relic. Apparently it is based on a novel by Andreas Eschbach about “An archaeologist [who] discovers an ancient skeleton and items that indicate it may have been a time traveler who visited Palestine and recorded images of Christ.” And... Read more
The Canadian government has heard the movie studios’ cry, and is prepared to wreak vengeance upon people who pirate movies (including, I presume, people who pirate movies that glamorize pirates… but I digress). Reports the Canadian Press: Stephen Harper found a fitting moment to announce his plan to crack down on film piracy: while sitting in his office with a bad-guy-busting ex-action hero who’s now governor of the world’s movie capital. The Prime Minister made the pledge to Arnold Schwarzenegger... Read more
Empire Online has an update on Darren Aronofsky’s Noah movie: “It’s an adaptation of Noah’s Ark,” he exclusively reveals to Empire Online, “and I’m pretty much done with the script.” But it’s not, he insists, to be confused with the upcoming Evan Almighty. “This is not a comedy. It’s funny, because Noah’s always been done as a comedy. This is definitely more the sci-fi version. It’s the traditional Noah story, but it’s told in a serious way. More fantasy than... Read more
This story is over a month old now, but it’s still funny — in a scary kind of way: Director Mike Figgis spent longer at LAX airport than intended. He’d arrived in Los Angeles, along with half the acting and directing world, for what is known as ‘pilot season’, when the big studios try out new scripts, directors and actors in a two-week frenzy of auditions and career make-or-breaks. When Figgis was being grilled by airport immigration, he was asked... Read more
Robert Koehler of Variety reviews Munyurangabo at Cannes: Like a bolt out of the blue, Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung achieves an astonishing and thoroughly masterful debut with “Munyurangabo,” which is — by several light years — the finest and truest film yet on the moral and emotional repercussions of the 15-year-old genocide that wracked Rwanda. Pic’s supremely confident, simple storytelling and relaxed, slightly impressionist visual style follow a conflict that emerges between two friends as one makes a... Read more
As a Bible-movie connoisseur, I could not help but notice the first few paragraphs of this Variety story: Egypt’s Media Production City has announced three projects set to lens in the 21-million-square-feet studio complex. Producer John Heyman’s $130 million “Nefertiti” project, Exodus Films’ $15 million “The Exodus Scrolls” and Blighty shingle Young Legends’ $5 million “Young Cleopatra” have all inked deals with Egypt’s largest film complex. A media free zone with 31 video and cinema studios, the complex was opened... Read more
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