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Hollywood Insight 07/12/13

Dear Hollywood: Bible Movies We Want to See

Paramount Pictures is working on a big budget movie, set to release Spring 2014, retelling the biblical story of Noah and the flood.

Time will tell if Noah will be a success, but my guess is it will be. Directed by Oscar winner Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Noah stars Oscar winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator) in the lead role, and Oscar winners Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Sir Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs) alongside him.

Anticipating that release got me to thinking, what other Bible stories could make great big-screen movies?

There have been some straight-to-DVD and TV movie versions of biblical stories, but I’m talking about big-budget cinema. With the success of HISTORY’s TV miniseries, The Bible, it’s clear that movies inspired by this historical, sacred text have an audience, 2 billion Christians to be exact.

To gauge interest, we polled CBN.com visitors to see what movie they’d like Hollywood to make. Here are the results:

What Bible character's story do you want to see on the big screen?

Couple of surprises here. Garnering only 10 percent of the vote, Noah isn’t in high demand. Neither is Moses, who just happens to be the possible subject of an upcoming Steven Spielberg movie. There’s no doubt hours of research are going into these projects, but, at least from what we gathered in our little ‘ask the audience’ poll, people want to see Bible movies that aren’t being made.

Granted, the story of David has been done before. The 1985 film King David, starring Richard Gere, comes to mind. But, that’s almost 30 years ago, and his story got the most votes. And who can name a big theatrical release that focused on the lives of the other top picks: Paul the Apostle, the prophet Elijah or the repentant Mary Magdalene?

Just sayin’ Hollywood, look to this rich text for ideas. These historical accounts are full plot twists, conflict, drama, comedy and inspiration.

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