Eh?

[sombrefan]

The God character and any references to churches will be removed from the film version of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy.

Which just strikes me as bloody stupid and a blatant attempt to bend over backwards to accomodate the wishes of the vocal religious loonies.

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Comments

I read a detailed post about this.

[thespice.livejournal.com]

And feel much the same as you do about it.

In a way, it's kind of understandable

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, given the huge cost of producing feature-length movies, you have to be sure you have a sufficient audience to get a good return on your investment. Sadly, anything too critical of religion will get no play in the red states, and the video may very well not be carried by national chains like Blockbuster and Wal-Mart.

Not having read the books, I would probably suggest they either not adapt them for movies at all, or do them for a much smaller market, but that doesn't look like an option at this time.

I don't think this is a good thing, BTW, but unfortunately, it's an economic reality.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

I think you would enjoy the books, they're very good. Sometimes I wish Hollywood would take the overseas market into account, most other countries wouldn't really care about the religious overtones of the trilogy.

They do

[kuzibah.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, most of the overseas market doesn't speak English as a first language, so the big international hits are things like "Die Hard." A talky, philosophical piece wouldn't survive the translation. And even if something is a hit in the British Isles, the population is not large enough to recoup the investment.

Honestly, I think the money they pour into movies is out of control. If a movie costs $80 million to make, and $40 million to market, and $30 million to distribute, there's no possible way it can ever make a profit. But then you have something like "Lost in Translation," which was made for a few million, made $30 million internationally, and everyone's happy. There should be more films like that.