{"id":1798,"date":"2007-01-02T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-02T14:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/01\/did-the-nativity-story-kill-the-biblical-epic\/"},"modified":"2007-01-02T14:49:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-02T14:49:00","slug":"did-the-nativity-story-kill-the-biblical-epic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/01\/did-the-nativity-story-kill-the-biblical-epic.html","title":{"rendered":"Did The Nativity Story kill the biblical epic?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/i> posts its own story on the disappointing box-office<\/a> performance of The Nativity Story<\/a><\/i> ($43.5 million worldwide so far), and the possible consequences<\/a> thereof:<\/span><\/p>\n

New Line spent about $65 million making and marketing \u201cThe Nativity Story\u201d and probably will make its money back on home video.<\/p>\n

But Wyck Godfrey, producer of \u201cThe Nativity Story,\u201d fears that his movie\u2019s slow momentum at the box office will discourage others from making large-budget, overtly Christian entertainment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were relieved by how it held up. But it has struck a blow to bigger-budget epic biblical stories,\u201d Godfrey said. \u201cI\u2019m not running out to do the [life of the] Apostle Paul, and I was thinking about doing it before.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> \u2014 before The Nativity Story<\/i> came out and made it more difficult to pitch such things.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/i> (2004), and the Times<\/i> quotes an editorial<\/a> from Christianity Today<\/i> which complains that The Nativity Story<\/i> is not as violent \u2014 sorry, as \u201cboldly realistic\u201d \u2014 as The Passion<\/i> was. So without the violence, those stories could have been a hard sell anyway. But that doesn\u2019t have to mean that the biblical-epic genre is dead; presumably that King David epic<\/a> currently being written by J. Michael Straczynski will have its share of battle scenes.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u201cThe Nativity Story\u201d and probably will make its money back on home video. But Wyck Godfrey, producer of \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDid The Nativity Story kill the biblical epic?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"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\" \/>\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\/2007\/01\/did-the-nativity-story-kill-the-biblical-epic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did The Nativity Story kill the biblical epic?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2007\/01\/did-the-nativity-story-kill-the-biblical-epic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-01-02T14:49:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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