That was the panel I saw the other day at the Tribeca Film Festival. Due to the recent success of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, everyone's looking for the next religious hit.
With Cuba Gooding Jr., Jonathan Bock(Grace Hill), Ralph Winter(20th century Fox, Michael Flaherty (co-founder Walden Media and moderated by a woman from PBS, the panel talked about the sudden realization by Hollywood of the Christian market. Flaherty mentioned that a recent survey had 40% of Americans in church on Sunday - duh! What a huge mega market. Walden Media had a huge hit with Chronicles of Narnia which as one audience member said "I'm Jewish and I read that book as a kid and loved it. I didn't think about is this a Christian book or not - it's a great story."
And as the panel went on - the basic overall message is: is it a good story? Will it captivate people no matter what their faith?
Poor Marty Scorsese with his Last Temptation of Christ which brings up many of the same issues that the coming DaVinci Code does. Too early? Well actually most people found the film too boring.
I still love the soundtrack by Peter Gabriel - it's even better than the film.
And in related news...the film I scored last year Mrs. Worthington's Party is now garnering some interest at a certain major studio. As it deals with priests and the Catholic Church and Christmas, we hope to see it on the big screens just as the first snow falls. I may be in Bulgaria in the next few months recording new bits of score. Stay tuned.
1 comment:
This is very interesting since the main idea of your work, music man, is to sychronize music/sound bytes to the image. If we could only hire you to assist some of the entertainment men who claim to be of faith to do the same with their lives. Ralph Winter, has been involved in an extra-marital affair for years, claiming to be a man of faith. And the most interesting thing of all is that his associates from faith networks and in the highest level of church all know this. They are actually lauding him behind the scenes, living vicariously through his forbidden activity, because of his position and standing in the industry. If you have any friends who are CGI experts they could superimpose him onto the likeness of Bill Clinton, and you could dub in...uh, who me, I never slept with that woman, Ms. Price. Baby...what baby, I didn't know she was having my illegitimate baby, I mean, some man's baby. Not I said the mouse.
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