No[ah] Tanks! in debut of “Evan Almighty”
Hollywood’s most expensive comedy EVER needed divine intervention and didn’t get it at the box office this weekend as Universal’s Evan Almighty debuted to a disappointing $32.1 million…The Tom Shadyac-directed pic will see at most $100 mil domestic this summer despite its runaway cost of $210 mil. (Universal insists the final budget came in at $175 mil.)The pic’s business was strongest in the South and Mid-West, average in the West Coast and Mountain regions, and softest in the East and Canada. But the studio had marketed the movie’s religious theme heavily to faith-based sectors whose crowds never translated into multitudes of moviegoers…”Suffice to say without ‘frequent church attenders, this film might have gone down as one of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history,” an insider who helped market the film explained to me. All along, tracking scores for “Unaided Awareness” had been too low. And even with the book and toilet jokes removed, parents didn’t want to take their kids to a sequel based on a movie they felt was too mature…
But the major problem in the end seemed to be that Evan Almighty sacrificed too many laughs at the altar of heartwarming. Exit polls showed that the top reason adults wanted to see the movie was the humor (76%). But Evan’s reviews were god awful. According to RottenTomatoes.com, it garnered only 21% positive reviews among the pool of 112 film critics, and only 9% from major media outlets.). For details about what went wrong, including an analysis of the movie’s marketing and a meltdown by the director, read my previous: ‘Evan Almighty’: Going To Heaven Or Hell?.
It doesn’t look this Gord-based story-cum-stinker will do any better outside the US. It opened to so-so numbers in Russian and Ukraine, and debuts in the UK, France and Germany in July and August. Awww…
Nikki Finke has this to say in the last link above:
…Universal moguls have convinced themselves that religious America will turn out for this family fun in droves. I’m not so sure, and I may look like an idiot at the end of the summer by saying so. Even though the studio is dragging out every trick in the Christian playbook, including that PR firm to the religious Grace Hill Media, to convince holy-rollers in fly-over country to see this take-off on the already tired Noah’s Ark tale. I suspect The Passion Of The Christ crowd wants stories based on the New Testament than the Old Testament. Leave it to heathen Hollywood not to comprehend that…
I agree with Finke - and will go farther: America doesn’t really want movies made by or for xians. (The only ones who believe their own lies are the RaptureRightist theocons.) Xians have compartmentalized their lives: Sunday morning is for being dutifully observant; the rest of the week has been paid for up front. Actually, their taste in children’s fare really runs to Pixar’s fairy tales and animated comedies with “cute” themes. Whether or not that translates into licensed product tie-ins or that movie studios have found the heart of “cuteness” and pimp it hard - it makes a great way to keep children busy with their latest “crush” on their sheets, Tshirts, dolls and lunchboxes. The kids love the latest fish/car/penquin/lion/native-princess/mermaid/ogre - they don’t love the Armor of Gawd jammies, no matter what the adults tell us!
Meanwhile, the xian parents are too busy with NASCAR and American Idol to care or to be drawn in to Hollywood’s latest Noah nyuck-nyuck-nyuck fest. And as much as I like Morgan Freeman (and the late George Burns, from Oh! God!), Gord loses too much in being translated to the big screen. Perhaps the fundies unconciously realize that. Or find BigScreenGord “distasteful” or unfunny…
And I think we’ve seen the last of the “Passion of the Kreist” torture-porn. I believe that most Americans woke up soon afterward and asked themselves, “What the hell was that all about?”
IF I ever decide I need to see Steve Carrell in a religious setting, I’ll rent the DVD. But I really don’t think it will ridicule the OT or Gord or Noah enough to be worth my time.
Rhetorical question of the day: How many heads would explode if a Hollywood movie was made with a powerful atheist story line?
Some blurbs from reviewers:
And my fave:
All together now: Oh. My. Gawd.
I found Contact a very good movie that showed the Atheist side of things.
And just to add, Monty Python did a good job in educating me as well (Life of Brian, Meaning of Life …)
Yeah, Life of Brian and the Meaning of Life are the only really good “religion”-based comedies that I know of. Woody Allen does occasional jokes and satirical scenes about philosophy/religion in some of the older films.
Hugo, Contact was a good movie - and an even better book!
I love Monty Python. They’re undoubtedly geniuses. However, their 30-minute show was just perfect; the vignettes were varied and never stale (although too edgy, sometimes; the excessive drooling one and the one about “Tennis, anyone?”, where hands were slashed off, rank at the bottom of my list). But the Dead Parrot or Crunch Frog join several others at the top! And John Cleese’s eulogy at Graham Chapman’s funeral was a joy!
But I’d really like to see Hollywood tackle atheism head-on…
I thought Contact didn’t go far enough. When asked if the 95% of the world who believed in god(s) were wrong, she should have responded, resoundingly, “YES!”.
Don’t forget Holy Grail. And while the Python films weren’t “atheist themed”, they did nothing but poke fun at religion, which is why I like them so much.
My favorite movie line of all time: “Alright I AM the messiah! Now FUCK OFF!!!”
And of course, the reply: “How shall we fuck off, oh lord?”
Are you kidding?? Sam Peckinpah’s Salad Days was friggin’ hilarious!
What about the one where Cleese is taking his dead mother to the mortuary….
Angel Heart was one of my favorite religious flicks.
Oh wait…
wrong religion.
LOL!
You people seriously need to calm the fuck down. I mean seriously, why are you getting up in arms over this?
What are you doing a bad impression of the xians and the Da Vinci Code?
Jeez. No wonder people consider atheists to be militant when we’re always on edge about everything. This really isn’t something to get all tense over.
What are we up in arms about? I thought we were just reminiscing about funny movies, as opposed to Evan Almighty.
AtheistUnderMask? ChristianUnderAtheistUnderMask? Seriously, what are you talking about dude? I think you are not atheist. you are making zero sense.
The majority of the fundamentalist part of my family don’t go to movies. They come up with several reasons why, but it’s mostly that they don’t want to give money to the heathens/heretics in Hollywood.
[Done.Mods]
Anyway, if the rest of the fundamentalists are the same way, some of the target audience would never go to see it anyway. The rest of them probably weren’t interested in another retelling of a story they got tired of hearing, growing up.
Maybe I should have clarified. The blog post sounds very up in arms, and very, if not angry, then at least tense.
As I said, lighten up. It’s a movie.
I’ve never seen any Monty Python movies. The one I did see I turned off about a half hour in because I thought it was stupid (not stupid funny). Maybe it’s an acquired taste. I suppose I should give it another go.
I had a feeling this movie wouldn’t do too well considering its budget. And it wasn’t because of the religious theme. Watching the trailers, it just really didn’t look that funny.
I enjoyed Contact too, but I could also use a well made film that discusses atheism in a frank and straightforward way.
While certainly not a central plot, 1408 has a professed atheist as the main character (John Cusack’s role) and I thought it interesting that they did manage to bring in the “what do you tell a dying child” meme.
He is angry with himself and his wife for telling her ‘lies and stories’ about what waited after death, he felt they should have told her the truth and encouraged her to fight more. The mother disagrees, stating it comforted their child and was the appropriate thing to do.
Just a small scene in a very Hitchcockesque (sp?) movie, but at least it WAS there to provoke some conversations.
Do you always contradict yourself like this?
All the believers I know are avoiding the movie BECAUSE it’s religious; they think it makes fun of God and the Flood, as if the Flood story isn’t absurd enough on its own.
AUM, I seriously urge you to get to an Imaging Center ASAP! You need a full-body-scan. Obviously, you still have a “xian bone” in you somewhere, if you thought we were angry.
For starters, my use of the word schadenfreude should have alerted you that I, at least, was feeling gleeful. I posted the best and most thorough analysis on what/who/why of a xian movie’s “triple-gainer into an empty pool”. Hollywood spent a ton of money (almost $.25billion!) and cheaped-out on the advertising budget. As one of the reviewers (see #1 above) noted, every single funny part was in the 90-second trailer, leaving the body of the film absent of surprises.
Let this be a lesson to investors: don’t underwrite xian films - comedy OR drama. The Passion of the Kreist was a fluke and xian-torture-porn is unpalatable. Even Jack Bauer’s days are numbered!
If you read my glee as “mean-spirited anger”, your atheism is kinda shaky. Find that last, hypersensitive xian bone and have it removed.
Yeah, but like the recent gord movie with Hillary Swank, it goes on to show that the skeptic/atheist has no clue. In other words, total fantasy.
Speaking of “Gord” related films…
Here are two linked references to Bill Maher’s newest project…His film attacking religion…due out in Sept. or Oct.? As yet, ‘untitled’, I guess.
Matt Dentler’s Blog:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/mattdentler/archives/013577.html
And…
the New York Post’s, Cindy Adams (Oy Vey?):
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04092007/gossip/cindy/he_of_no_faith_makes_most_ungodly_movie_cindy_cin dy_adams.htm
A film, sure to raise a lot of hackles…
and heckles?…
and probably (hopefully?) a lot of cheers from us GifSters!
Sorry about that second link.
Instead, here’s the text
[from the NYPOST]:
“HE OF NO FAITH MAKES MOST UNGODLY MOVIE”
By CINDY ADAMS
April 9, 2007 — IF you don’t like Mel Gibson, who zaps those of Jewish faith, you’ll newly con sider him Brother Teresa compared to Bill Maher, who is poised to void on every faith. Any faith.
Oy, is Bill Maher a bad boy. His stand-up shows are sellouts. His books are best sellers. His HBO thing “Real Time” is real big. At a dinner table, if you can wrench him away from his bimbette du jour, he’s hilarious. But, boy, is he a bad boy.
Bad Boy Bill Maher, someone who has never had Belief, has never ever been aligned with Devotion, Divinity, Prayer, The Supreme Power. He has now teamed with even badder boy Larry Charles, director of that epic “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.” These two have co-created an inflammentary. That’s a documentary sure to inflame whoever sees it. We’re talking a scathing, searing, stabbing attack on religion. Anybody’s. Everybody’s. Hysterically funny, it is the most sacrilegious movie ever made.
The man makes Michael Moore into a moderate. This gem, which should drop on us in six months, will rate four fires in hell.
Maher’s inflammentary is so far untitled. The whole schmear was his idea. He’s worked on it six months. Paramount put the money up. In Brad Grey’s pre-Paramount Pictures chief days, he was Bill’s agent. Maher shot this film in Jerusalem, Stonehenge in England and God (excuse the expression) knows where else. He’s interviewed all of today’s great religious minds. He did it in secret. Maybe because he’s afraid we’ll all stone him, he still wants this kept secret.
Trust me, after this all that could be next for him is a musical version of “Schindler’s List.”
Some spoiler alerts:
The ‘flood’ hits only 1 town. It stops short at Washington D.C. Nobody dies in the film. So I was told by a guy at work.
Pretty funny - he called it ‘xtian mythology’. No kidding.
He also told me that folks in the audience were oohing & ah-ing, some got excited, some wept a little.
No accounting for brainpower, I suppose.
Did they include Noah’s drunken sodomizing by Ham scene in the pic?
Just Wondering.
In terms of athiest-themed works, the Golden Compass is coming out soon. I have no doubt that they’ll remove pretty much all of the negative portrayals of religion. Nevertheless, if it gets people to read the books . . .
Actually, Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons will be interesting IF they stick to the storyline.
The (fictional) new Poop is at the heart of the story; he sells himself as the charismatic “Messianic Savior”, and the “matter/anti-matter terrorism” was exciting.
However, Brown is so formulaic - the tale starts with the murder of an elderly man whose *gasp* lovely young descendant is thrown at Langdon’s head…
Naomi,
I completely agree with your formulaic comment. I read DVC first and then A&D and I remember thinking, “Ummmm…is this the same story??” I couldn’t believe a mainstream author could get away with writing two books that shared so many main plot points, with the lead character being the same dude. How many times does an old dude die and then you meet his beautiful, intelligent daughter/neice whatever?
Man, I need to write some shitty novels and make millions…I am getting rather sick of my job…
Things, I think, “Evan Almighty” had going against it, on all counts:
*As Chaucer could have told you 700 years ago (and did, in the Miller’s Tale), the theology is wrong. After the last floody floody, God said he wouldn’t drown the world again, he’d destroy it differently the next time. Oh so merciful, that God.
*”Bruce Almighty” was interesting (but not particularly spectacular) because it showed what a normal guy would do with omnipotence, something we all wonder, to some degree. No one wonders “what if I had to build an ark”?
*The only comedy about genocide that ever worked was “Springtime for Hitler.”
*Bad language, black God, and potentially mocking religious humor would turn off the churchies that they were trying to court. If “Biblical story without violence featuring a really pregnant teenage Mary” was enough to keep them from seeing “The Nativity Story,” then that combination would be more than enough to drive them away from “Evan.”
*From all the previews, the plot for this movie looked almost indistinguishable from “The Santa Clause.” And we all know how well those movies do.
So, a mediocre-at-best movie whose religious themes drive away secular types, whose religious mistakes and other themes drive away religionists, and whose plot falls apart if you think about it too hard. Sounds like the makings of an utter flop.
I actually kind of liked “Bruce Almighty” but you know, in my opinion, it made God seem not so omnipotent. As soon as I heard about this one, I had a feeling it wouldn’t do so well…
A story about building an Ark like Noah’s, (which I really didn’t believe in even when I was a Christian) just seems stupid.
But hey, at least Steve Carell made a good salary off of it! I’ve always liked him.
I haven’t seen Bruce Almighty; to be honest, it’s never really attracted my attention.
I definitely won’t be seeing Evan; I may tune in at some point in the future when it’s on network TV, but that’s the only hope its makers have of ever having me watch it.
Naomi, Terra, I agree: I liked A&D better than TDVC, but only in respect to the action and some of the themes. Brown’s biggest flaw among an ocean of them is definitely character and introduction - and the villain in A&D was the worst cardboard construction I’ve read in a long time (and I read a lot of pulp!). And why, oh why is it always an older man with a nubile younger woman, whether or not she’s a genius (which she is in A&D)?
so sad, because i love the show “the office”
even jim carrey wasn’t crazy enough to get involved in this one
Is ghod wearing mormon temple garments in that photo?
It may well be watered down, but ‘The Golden Compass’, First book of pullmans ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, hits the screen this year. If there is a book series with more of a strong atheist message, I’d like to see it