--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "ShempMcGurk" <shempmcg...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > I got ahold of a review copy of "Creation," the film about > > Charles Darwin that has been eagerly awaited everywhere but > > the United States Of America, that bastion of intellectual > > freedom that is the only country on the planet where it had > > difficulty finding a distributor. > > [snip] > > Only in your twisted mind, Barry, could there possibly be a > connection between intellectual freedom and a movie finding > a distributor. > > I can assure you that if the movie promised to fill seats it > could be about portraying Satan himself as the best thing to > happen to planet Earth and it would find a distributor.
Actually, it might not. The issue here was the same as with "The Last Temptation Of Christ," with large Christianist groups threatening to picket any theater showing "Creation." I *had* to cross a picket line to see "The Last Temptation Of Christ." Many people did not cross that line. Sure, the film distributors want to turn a profit. But in America they are also facing local church and radical Christian groups who promise to boycott their theaters *not just during the showing of the film they don't like but forever* if the theaters don't do what they want. So the decision to distribute one film that is drawing fire from these crazies has to be weighed against other concerns, such as whether they can stay in business in towns "out in the sticks," where much of their revenue comes from. Jeremy Thomas, producer of "Creation" went on the record early on about the number of possible distributors who told him that they were *afraid* to distribute the film. See the Wikipedia entry on this film: Releases According to Jeremy Thomas, the United States was one of the last countries to find a distributor due to the prominence of the Creation–evolution controversy. Thomas said: "It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules." [5] His comments in the mainstream press, and the publicity surrounding the Toronto premiere, provoked flame wars across religious, atheist, scientific and film communities on the internet. [8] Several campaigns and petitions sprang up independently in attempts to lobby distributors to release the film in the US, including those on Facebook.[9][10] Posts on related blogs such as film critic Roger Ebert's, a noted admirer of Darwin, stretched into the hundreds.[11] On September 24, 2009, Variety reported that Newmarket Films acquired the rights to the movie and plans to release it on January 24 in the US.[12] Newmarket Films had previously successfully released Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of The Christ.
