![\"robmoore\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2016\/09\/robmoore.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFrom Darren Aronofsky\u2019s Noah<\/a><\/i> to Timur Bekmambetov\u2019s Ben-Hur<\/a><\/i>, if there was any major Hollywood studio that committed itself to the recent Bible-movie revival, it was Paramount. (Fox came a close second by producing Exodus: Gods and Kings<\/a><\/i> and distributing Son of God<\/a><\/i>.) And Paramount owed its interest in the genre partly to the fact that its vice chairman, Rob Moore, was an evangelical Christian.<\/p>\n Now comes word, via Variety<\/a><\/i>, that Moore is leaving the studio.<\/p>\n The immediate cause of Moore\u2019s departure, according to Variety<\/i>, is the recent nixing of a sale championed by Moore that would have seen China\u2019s Wanda Group buy a minority stake in the studio. The higher-ups at Viacom, which owns Paramount, had already ousted a Viacom chairman who was in favour of the sale last month.<\/p>\n But the studio has also been having a very bad year at the box office, with costly flops like, well, Ben-Hur<\/i>. The studio\u2019s best-performing film<\/a> so far is Star Trek Beyond<\/a><\/i>, which at $157.8 million in North America is doing significantly less well than the two Star Trek<\/i> films that preceded it (both of which earned north of $228 million).<\/p>\n Viacom also recently indicated that it expects to lose over $100 million<\/a> on a film called Monster Trucks<\/i>, which doesn\u2019t even open until January, four months from now.<\/p>\n Deadline<\/a> notes that Moore\u2019s faith motivated his involvement with the biblical genre \u2014 and it notes that those films, too, didn\u2019t do as well as the studio would have liked:<\/p>\n Moore was known as Hollywood\u2019s highest-ranking Evangelical Christian. A member of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship church in West Los Angeles, he repeatedly sought ways to bring the faith-based audience to mainstream Paramount films. But Ben-Hur<\/i> badly missed the mark, with roughly $26 million in domestic ticket sales on a reported budget of about $100 million. And Darren Aronfsky\u2019s Noah<\/i>, released in 2014, was only a little less problematical. The film had a middling $363 million in worldwide sales on a budget of around $125 million, as wary believers criticized the liberties it took with the Biblical book of Genesis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I have never spoken to Moore myself, but I\u2019ve quoted him a few times at this blog.<\/p>\n Two years ago<\/a>, Aronofsky told The Hollywood Reporter<\/i> that Moore\u2019s Christianity was one reason he made Noah<\/i> at Paramount instead of at some other studio:<\/p>\n Aronofsky says Moore\u2019s Christianity is one reason he set up the movie at Paramount when there were other suitors: \u201cIt was written by two Jewish kids, and to get his reaction gave us the confidence that there was a bigger audience for the film.\u201d Moore concurs: \u201cCertainly the conversations we had about the movie took place at a very different level than a lot of other people in terms of my understanding of the story.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Moore also got a youth pastor from his church to serve as the film\u2019s \u201cbiblical advisor<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n Moore also played an active part in promoting Ben-Hur<\/i> to religious audiences<\/a>.<\/p>\n Moore spoke about his experiences in the movie business \u2014 and how he dealt with the controversies around Noah<\/i> \u2014 just before the film\u2019s release<\/a>:<\/p>\n