{"id":13625,"date":"2014-02-14T15:38:28","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T23:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=13625"},"modified":"2014-02-15T12:17:56","modified_gmt":"2014-02-15T20:17:56","slug":"church-groups-taking-over-theatres-for-son-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/02\/church-groups-taking-over-theatres-for-son-of-god.html","title":{"rendered":"Church groups “taking over” theatres for Son of God<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Son of God<\/a><\/i>, the big-screen life-of-Jesus movie spun off from last year\u2019s mini-series The Bible<\/a><\/i>, officially comes out two weeks from today \u2014 but some churches are giving their parishioners a chance to see the film slightly earlier than that.<\/p>\n

The Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i> says churches and other organizations around the U.S. are buying out entire theatres \u2014 not just individual screens, but entire multiplexes \u2014 for screenings of Son of God<\/i> on Thursday February 27, the night before the official release date. Just to give the whole thing a feeling of conquest, they\u2019re even calling these bookings \u201cTheatre Take-Overs\u201d.<\/p>\n

So if anyone heads to the local multiplex that night to, say, catch up on their Oscar nominees (the awards ceremony takes place that weekend, on March 2), or indeed to see anything else, they may find their efforts thwarted. As one church rep quoted in the Reporter<\/i>\u2019s story says: \u201cIf anyone comes to the theater to see another movie that night, they\u2019ll be out of luck, unless we have a few extra tickets to give them!\u201d<\/p>\n

While the main impetus for these \u201ctake-overs\u201d seems to be coming from English-speaking evangelicals and other Protestants, the Reporter<\/i> says \u201ctake-overs\u201d have also been planned for Catholic, Spanish and Korean audiences.<\/p>\n

Quite a few churches bought out entire screening rooms when The Passion of the Christ<\/a><\/i> (2004) came out ten years ago, but I don\u2019t recall hearing of entire multiplexes<\/i> being booked for that film. I suppose it could have happened, though.<\/p>\n

The Reporter<\/i> ran another story<\/a> last week looking at how producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey promoted the film at last week\u2019s National Prayer Breakfast, and along the way Downey made a claim that didn\u2019t strike me as entirely accurate.<\/p>\n

To wit, she is quoted as saying that Jesus \u201chasn\u2019t been on the big screen in a film since The Passion of the Christ<\/i>, and that was 10 years ago \u2026 and his whole life hasn\u2019t been on the big screen in almost 50 years, since The Greatest Story Ever Told<\/a><\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I can think of at least one other film that covered the entire life of Jesus and was distributed by a secular company, namely the Campus Crusade film Jesus<\/a><\/i> (1979), which was distributed by Warner Brothers back in the day. That film celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, and I\u2019ll have more to say about that in another post.<\/p>\n

February 15 update:<\/b> I just checked my notes from the pastors\u2019 screening of Son of God<\/i> that I attended three months ago, and I was reminded that the church leaders there talked openly of \u201ctaking back\u201d the media and even of \u201coccupying\u201d theatres, etc. So, if you were wondering where this \u201ctake-over\u201d rhetoric was coming from\u2026<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Churches across the country are booking entire multiplexes for the life-of-Jesus movie the night before its official release date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[360,51,189,52,1421],"class_list":["post-13625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-jesus-1979","tag-mark-burnett","tag-passion-of-the-christ","tag-roma-downey","tag-son-of-god"],"yoast_head":"\nChurch groups "taking over" theatres for Son of God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Churches across the country are booking entire multiplexes for the life-of-Jesus movie the night before its official release date.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/02\/church-groups-taking-over-theatres-for-son-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Church groups "taking over" theatres for Son of God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Churches across the country are booking entire multiplexes for the life-of-Jesus movie the night before its official release date.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/02\/church-groups-taking-over-theatres-for-son-of-god.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-14T23:38:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-02-15T20:17:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/files\/2014\/02\/bible-jesuscross-300x168.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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