the movie in which there is supposedly no US audience interest

[realthog]

You may recall a few months ago there was a bit of a flap regarding the movie Creation, which concerns itself with Charles Darwin's dilemma over the implications of his discovery of the principle of evolution by natural selection.

Despite respected leads Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, despite picking up accolades at various festivals, and despite the obvious topicality of its subject matter, the movie had significant difficulties finding a US distributor. Could this be because potential distributors were worried (justifiably or not) about the possibility of a major kerfuffle from religious extremists? Or could it be, as the faux-Xtian right maintained, because no one in their right minds in this country would want to go see a boring biopic about a long-dead scientist?

Well, this morning, just after 9.00, I received from the NYC branch of the Center for Inquiry an RSVP e-mail invite to a preview screening of the movie on Monday evening. It took me a few minutes to consult with Pam as to whether we'd both like to go, but I wrote back fairly quickly with my response: yes, we'd like a couple of tickets, oh yes, pretty please, yes we definitely would, you bet.

We were too late: already, after a matter of minutes on a Saturday morning, all the tickets had been snaffled.

Some lack of interest, eh?

Comments

[squirrel-monkey.livejournal.com]

You do bring up a good point re: anniversary. To clear up one thing though: I never said that I thought the movie was dull; hell, I'll probably watch it on DVD -- but rather that IN THE VIEW OF THE POTENTIAL DISTRIBUTORS it may be perceived as a 'boring biopic'. (I think it might be interesting, although I do find that most biopics tend to be a tad simplistic.)

Of course, I'm willing to admit that there's a chance of movie studios spooking at some potential controversy; I just don't think it's very likely. As a scientist, I do like to analyze my evidence, and so far, the only person mentioning controversy as a likely reason was the movie's producer, a person with a financial interest in the project. All the while, "Inherit the Wind" has been playing on cable channels for many years. I do not refuse to consider the possibility; I just think that financial expectations (or lack thereof) are the main motivating factor in the behavior of the movie studios. Are they underestimating the appeal? Very possible, but I never said that I thought they were smart.