Why Christ the Lord Film Failed

During the first year and a half of running this blog, there was quite a bit of talk about Anne Rice's "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" being adapted for the big screen. All that came to an end in August 2007 with the announcement in Christianity Today that the project was not going to "move forward".

Fast forward to 2009 and a Boston Globe story on producer David Kirkpatrick which includes some more detail about why this project never made it.

Rice had planned to sell Kirkpatrick the rights to her novel "Christ the Lord", which Good News executives were counting on to show that the new company was a force in movie-making. But Rice angrily withdrew when he didn’t pay her.

'David, you broke my heart', she wrote in a scathing e-mail, obtained by the Spotlight Team.

[snip]

Good News had no way to pay for the $263,420 advertising package - those bills still haven’t been paid. Good News had less chance of finding the $40 million Kirkpatrick estimated that it would cost to film a movie about Christ on location in Israel. But the publicity of the Kirkpatrick-Rice alliance was valuable, boosting the company’s profile as it prepared to raise funds for its own movie studio in Massachusetts.

Rice withdrew from the Christ the Lord project a few weeks after the ads ran because, she said, Kirkpatrick repeatedly rebuffed her requests for payment and did not seem to be preparing for movie production. She fired off a scorching e-mail after he began writing her letters that, she felt, were an attempt to bully her.

'As I look back on it now, the entire enterprise on your part looks like a scheme', Rice wrote in an e-mail in May 2007. 'Did you have some idea that you could draw me deeper and deeper into the project and then make a demand on me for funds?’

Kirkpatrick said that the split with Rice was painful, that he eventually attempted to pay her, but too late. Rice, reached by e-mail, declined to comment...

Thanks to Peter Chattaway for this one.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt Stuck in the Wilderness

It seems like the film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Christ the Lord:Out of Egypt has run into a dead end. Mark Moring at Christianity Today has announced that the project has been scrapped.

Rice...told CT Movies that "we decided not to move forward" with the film or with Good News Holdings. She would not elaborate on the reasons.

GNH president and CEO Christopher Chisholm told CT Moves that "several things came up about Christ the Lord," including "creative differences" involving the "budget, director and talent." Chisholm said, "We had an amicable parting of ways, and we decided to release all our rights to Christ the Lord."

This is bad news for Good News Holdings as well as for anyone who wanted to see Johnny Depp play Jesus, although, given that the second book (also before the start off Jesus's ministry) will not be released until next year, that was a fairly distant project anyway.

Latest News on Christ the Lord

IGN.Com have the latest on Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It doesn't add much to previous stories - the main piece of news is that it will be filmed "on location in Israel this October". I think originally this looked likely to be a Christmas 2007 release, but now that must be out of the question. Whilst it's probable that it will be released sometime in 2009, they may well not wait until Christmas. This story (which is about Jesus at the age of 7) is not particularly tied to a certain point in the year in the way that, say, The Nativity Story was.

For what it's worth, the next instalment in Rice's series of novels, "Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana" is due out next spring.
(Hat tip to Peter Chattaway)

NY Times on Christ the Lord

The New York Times has a new piece on the forthcoming adaptation of Anne Rice's Christ the Lord. Although this was originally due to be out next year, things seem to be going fairly slowly at the moment. The script's first draft appears to have only been completed a couple of weeks ago.

The article is actually more about the film's producer David Kirkpatrick, than Rice though. In particular is looks at his gradual conversion. As far as I'm aware there is no official website for this film as of yet.

Anne Rice sells film rights to "Christ Out of Egypt"

I've been meaning to post on this since Friday morning, but alas, haven't quite had the time. Back in May I linked to an article where Interview with a Vampire author Anne Rice was talking about trying to develop her novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt into a film. Well it looks like she's taken the next step. Variety is reporting that she has sold the rights to Good News Holdings run by a consortium including fellow author George Barna, and former Paramount president David Kirkpatrick. This is the first film to be made by the recently formed Good News Holdings who were created to develop "faith-based content in multimedia formats".

Variety notes how

Rice, who stopped writing gothic novels shortly after she returned to the Christian faith following a 38-year estrangement, has made researching and chronicling the life of Christ her singular mission since 2002. "Out of Egypt" was the first of what she expects will be a four-book series.

The first instalment began when Christ turned 7 years old and started to realize his destiny. The book covers the move of Christ and his Jewish family from Egypt to Nazareth.

As far as I'm aware there has yet to be a film that has really explored this stage of Jesus's life, which is not discussed in the gospels, although some of the non-canonical gospels cover this period including the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an incident from which was briefly shown in the American version of Jesus (1999) (IV.2). Having not read the book, I wonder if this "gospel" is a major source. Both works have Jesus leaving Egypt at the age of seven (III.2) and this would seem like a likely source for a book/film covering this stage in Jesus's life.

There is some more discussion about this project over at Cinematical, and, as ever, FilmChat. It looks like the plan is to release this in time for Christmas 2007 with plans to develop a number of sequels. Given that The Nativity Story is due for release this Christmas, I wonder if we'll see a Harry Potter-esque sequence of films about a boy with special powers growing up on our cinema screens every Christmas.

Anne Rice: Depp Should Play Jesus

I've been meaning to report this story for ages, but never quite got around to it. However, I've been away the last two days at my granny's funeral, so I'm a bit pushed for time, and thought this would be just the sort of short piece that I could squeeze in.

Author Anne Rice, who wrote Interview with a Vampire thinks Johnny Depp would be the ideal actor to play Jesus. Rice was interviewed by Cathleen Falsani (Chicago Sun Times) for a chapter in her book The God Factor: Inside the Spiritual Lives of Public People, where she interviews 32 celebrities on their views about spirituality.

Rice is currently trying to develop her novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt into a film and revealed that she think Depp would be ideal for the lead role.

I haven't told Johnny Depp yet, but wouldn't he be perfect?... Strong. Beautiful. Edgy. Soulful eyes. A graceful person but not effeminate. Roguish yet strangely wise. Yes, Depp as Jesus -- I can see it".

You can read the entire chapter at the Chicago Sun Times website.

Personally, I'm not sure how well Depp would work. He has great talent, and would bring some interesting things to the role, but he'd also bring association from all his previous work, and his absent father roles, in particular, might not be that appropriate. that said, I'm sure that even so, he would probably turn in a performance worthy of my top ten.