{"id":2188,"date":"2006-06-29T10:40:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-29T10:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass\/"},"modified":"2006-06-29T10:40:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-29T10:40:00","slug":"newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html","title":{"rendered":"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Time for another batch of quickies.<\/span><\/p>\n

1.<\/a> Vampire novelist Anne Rice<\/a> made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt<\/a><\/i> and openly talked about her return to faith. Now Variety<\/a><\/i> reports that she has signed the inevitable book deal \u2014 with a brand-new Christian company!<\/p>\n

Good News Holdings, formed last fall to produce faith-based content in multimedia formats, has made its first significant movie deal by acquiring Rice bestseller \u201cChrist the Lord: Out of Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rice, who adapted her gothic novel \u201cInterview With the Vampire,\u201d is penning the \u201cChrist\u201d script. No studio is attached yet, but the goal is a Christmas 2007 release.<\/p>\n

L.A.-based Good News Holdings is run by George Barna<\/a>, a bestselling author and researcher of Christian trends. . . .<\/p>\n

Rice was very vocal when \u201cInterview With the Vampire\u201d was made into a movie, initially disparaging the casting of Tom Cruise before changing her mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny agony or joy I suffered on \u2018Interview,\u2019 multiply it by 100 because it is just so crucial to me that this story get done right,\u201d Rice said. As for the current crop of faith-based Hollywood projects, Rice loved \u201cThe Passion of the Christ<\/a>\u201d but not \u201cThe Da Vinci Code<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought \u2018Passion\u2019 was magnificent,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2018Da Vinci Code\u2019 I found to be profoundly offensive and tragically disconnected from the world of those who believe in Christ. The idea of people running around, willing to kill one another over whether Jesus was married, that was ridiculous and appalling. This was old fashion gothic horror having a field day with the Church.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And who should play Jesus? Last month, according to Matt Page<\/a>, she was hoping for Johnny Depp! Oh, but wait \u2014 this book is the first in a projected four-part series, and only depicts Christ when he was a young boy, right? Okay, Depp will have to wait.<\/p>\n

2.<\/a> New Line Cinema\u2019s The Nativity Story<\/a><\/i> now has a website<\/a>, with a teaser trailer and a behind-the-scenes featurette. It is interesting to hear screenwriter Mike Rich say that the only source materials he had to work with are the chapters at the beginning of Matthew and Luke, since it is obvious from the script that he has turned to other sources, too \u2014 otherwise Mary\u2019s parents wouldn\u2019t be named Joachim and Anna<\/a>. It is rather reminiscent of how Mel Gibson frequently talked about the gospels when promoting The Passion<\/a><\/i>, but was less forthcoming about Sr. Anne Catherine Emmerich and the others whose visions heavily influenced his screenplay.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: I just noticed that the website reveals another member of the Nativity<\/i> cast: Hiam Abbass<\/a>, who played Sa\u00efd\u2019s mother in Paradise Now<\/a><\/i> (2005), the wife of one of the Palestinian targets in Munich<\/a><\/i> (2005), and a middle-aged woman who discovers belly-dancing in Satin Rouge<\/a><\/i> (2002) \u2014 to name the three films of hers that I have seen \u2014 is playing Mary\u2019s mother Anna.<\/p>\n

3.<\/a> While New Line produces its ultra-devout Nativity<\/i> movie, the studio has also announced a start date<\/a> for The Golden Compass<\/i>, the first installment of Philip Pullman\u2019s anti-Christian \u2018His Dark Materials<\/a>\u2018 trilogy. Cameras are set to roll on September 4.<\/p>\n

4.<\/a> USA Today<\/a><\/i> has a new article on Evan Almighty<\/a><\/i>, complete with new photos of a Noah-like Steve Carell building his ark.<\/p>\n

5.<\/a> David Poland<\/a> covers a film called Hot Chicks<\/i>, which is actually a series of nine short films all based on Jack T. Chick tracts<\/a>. I would love<\/i> to see this anthology, but it sounds like the film may get next to no distribution, due to certain legal problems (e.g., Chick didn\u2019t exactly give permission for his works to be adapted).<\/p>\n

6.<\/a> USA Today<\/a><\/i> reports that historians are already taking aim at Mel Gibson\u2019s Apocalypto<\/a><\/i>. The film comes out in five or six months.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time for another batch of quickies. 1. Vampire novelist Anne Rice made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and openly talked about her return to faith. Now Variety reports that she has signed the inevitable book deal \u2014 with a brand-new Christian company! Good News Holdings, formed […]<\/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-2188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNewsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Time for another batch of quickies.1. Vampire novelist Anne Rice made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and openly talked\" \/>\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\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Time for another batch of quickies.1. Vampire novelist Anne Rice made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and openly talked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-06-29T10:40:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html\",\"name\":\"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2006-06-29T10:40:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2006-06-29T10:40:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\"},\"description\":\"Time for another batch of quickies.1. Vampire novelist Anne Rice made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and openly talked\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/\",\"name\":\"FilmChat\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\",\"name\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\"},\"description\":\"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!","description":"Time for another batch of quickies.1. Vampire novelist Anne Rice made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and openly talked","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!","og_description":"Time for another batch of quickies.1. Vampire novelist Anne Rice made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and openly talked","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html","og_site_name":"FilmChat","article_published_time":"2006-06-29T10:40:00+00:00","author":"Peter T. Chattaway","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter T. Chattaway","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html","name":"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-06-29T10:40:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-06-29T10:40:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde"},"description":"Time for another batch of quickies.1. Vampire novelist Anne Rice made news not too long ago when she wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and openly talked","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/newsbites-anne-rice-nativity-compass.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Newsbites: Anne Rice! Nativity! Compass!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/","name":"FilmChat","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde","name":"Peter T. Chattaway","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Peter T. Chattaway"},"description":"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}