“Killing Jesus,” the three-hour telepic based on the bestselling historical thriller of the same name by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, may have shortchanged the divinity of Christ — click here for my review — but it scored with viewers in its premiere airing on Sunday, March 29.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
The three-hour Killing Jesus averaged 3.7 million viewers. That’s up 300,000 from the previous pics about Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln. Timing the launch to Easter week, and hoping to capitalize on the overall interest in religious fare, Killing Jesus also brought in a 1.0 rating among adults 25-54.
Killing Jesus will likely gross quite a few more viewers over the course of the week — on corporate sibling Fox News Channel. The home of O’Reilly, it will air the telepic on April 3 (Good Friday) and April 5 (Easter Sunday).
While it’s good to see that the Risen Lord can still bring people to the TV set, it would have been better if the movie had actually had the Resurrection in it, what with it airing on Palm Sunday and now during Holy Week.
But, it’s a start. The film was imperfect, but let’s hope it touched a few hearts and got some folks curious about reading the real story.
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