The 80s were a fairly thin time for Bible films. Over at FilmChat, Peter Chataway has a piece called A tale of two Bible movies from the 1980s where he compares the box office fates of 1985's King David and 1988's Last Temptation of Christ. Peter's main point is that these were the only two American films to get a cinematic release in the 80s that were based om the bible. (None of the following films fit into that category: (1980) The Day Christ Died, Wholly Moses, (1981) Peter and Paul, (1985) Hail Mary, (1986) Esther, (1986) Genesis, (1988) A.D., The Seventh Sign, (1989) Jesus of Montreal (Jesu de Montreal)).Peter also goes onto note how despite the back of a major studio, King David ultimately did worse than Last Temptation at the box office. I do think Peter overlooks some of Last Temptation's bankability factors. Firstly, whilst King David did feature a star (Richard Gere), Dafoe and Keitel were also fairly well known by this point. Secondly, whilst King David had a major studio behind it, nothing sells a movie like controversy (just ask Mel Gibson). All publicity is good publicity etc.. Last Temptation had controversy by the bucket load, and as a result is still well known today whereas King David is all but forgotten.
Either way, as Peter has pointed out elsewhere, The Nativity Story is not the first Bible film to be released by a major studio in 50 years.
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