Church "scared producers to drop Pullman trilogy"

[Maurice]

Daily Telegraph

by Stephen Adams

Arts Correspondent:



The Roman Catholic Church has been accused of scaring Hollywood producers into shelving the remaining two films in Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy, HIS DARK MATERIALS.



Sam Elliot, the American actor, said executives at New Line cinema had halted plans for THE SUBTLE KNIFE and THE AMBER SPYGLASS, despite "incredible" commercial success of the first in the trilogy, THE GOLDEN COMPASS.



The film, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Eva Green, grossed more than £230million worldwide after its Christmas 2007 release.



But after a concerted campaign by factions of the Church in the United States, it only took a modest £53million there. Bill Donohoe, of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, led he attack calling on parents to boycott the film, saying it would prompt children to buy Pullman's novels, which he described as "atheism for kids".



The trilogy sees a young heroine called Lyra, battling a manipulative organisation called the Magisterium, which many have interpreted as being based on the Catholic Church.



The message in THE GOLDEN COMPASS was toned down compared with that in the book, published as NORTHERN LIGHTS in Britain, to appease the American religious Right.



However, that did little to dampen their protests and it now appears that campaigners' tactics have worked, with no sign that the films will be made.......



Although Pullman openly described himself as an atheist, he denies HIS DARK MATERIALS is anti-Catholic. Rather it is a warning about what religion can do "when it gets his hands on the levers of power".



Earlier this year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, praised Pullman's work for taking the church seriously at a time when theology was "drifting out" of the mainstream.



New line has declined to comment.

[will.15]

Baloney. Yeah, the Catholic Church did a great job of boycotting "The DaVinci Code." "The Golden Compass" wasn't well received here because it wasn't thought to be any good. The public didn't like it, the critics didn't like it, and, oh yeah, religious groups didn't like it, the same ones that tried to boycott Disney Parks because they had a private party for gays, or something, and that boycott had such a tremendous impact, attendance there went up during it.

[Lord Brett]

I agree. New Line were in serious financial trouble and The Golden Compass didn't make anything like the money that was expected. The film stank of post-production tampering and was nothing like as good as it could have been.

[CaptainWaggett]

I think when your director sacks Tom Stoppard, then bales out then changes his mind and decides to do it anyway, you know you probably aren't going to have a masterpiece on your hand. Shame the NT wasn't doing its broadcasting thing when their production was on - that really was a masterpiece!

[dremble wedge]

The Guardian has an alternative take on proceedings. The point it makes about Harry Potter would seem to invalidate Sam Elliott's argument...





Who killed off The Golden Compass?



Sam Elliot believes the Catholic church killed off any chances of a sequel to The Golden Compass, but the truth may be far simpler



After the success of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy looked a dead cert for epic fantasy book franchise success. In 2007, when first installment The Golden Compass was released, it looked to have all the right ingredients: moppet actors, spectacular battles, a sexy baddie, Ian McKellen, snow. But no sequels were made. Why?



Actor Sam Elliot thinks he knows. According to an interview in the Evening Standard, Elliot – who basically played himself in The Golden Compass – is pinning the failure of the series directly on the Pope, saying: "The Catholic church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned. It did incredible at the box office. Incredible. It took $85m (£52m) in the States. The Catholic church … lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off."



He could have a point. The Golden Compass was the subject of a prolonged attack from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who proclaimed it to be "atheism for kids", and Fox News's Bill O'Reilly who, with typical restraint, apparently called the film a "war on Christmas". The attacks shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. Pullman has always been impressively vocal in his atheism, plus writing a book about some children literally murdering God is probably as overt an anti-Catholic statement as you can get – but there's something about Elliot's argument that doesn't quite ring true.



The Catholic church hates a lot of things. The Vatican called the Twilight sequel New Moon "a moral vacuum with a deviant message", and that's only the second in a series. Cardinal Francis Arinze started huffing about legal action when The Da Vinci Code was released, and that got a sequel in which loads of Catholics run around on fire. The Pope said that Harry Potter would "corrupt the Christian faith" and that got seven sequels.



It's not just movies. Madonna spent much of her 2006 concerts writhing around in an age-inappropriate leotard strapped to a giant glittery crucifix, something that Cardinal Ersilio Tonini called "an act of open hostility", and that went on to become the highest-grossing female tour of all time. The Catholic church couldn't even stop a middle-aged lady in a horrible leotard singing about her holidays.



So maybe, just maybe, The Golden Compass wasn't given any sequels because it didn't deserve any. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 42% – ranking it alongside such masterpieces as Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle – with reviewers calling it "bland", "patchy" and "a crushing disappointment". It looks as if people were too busy despairing at the film's long, impenetrable voiceovers about dust to notice that it was apparently waging a war on Christmas.



It's a little sad that Elliot has to blame a shadowy religious conspiracy for the failure of The Golden Compass, especially since he was just about the film's sole redeeming feature, but the truth is that not many of us could bear to sit through any more sequels if there was any chance they would be as ropey as the first film. Nice try, though.

[GoggleboxUK]

The Go;den Compass was a huge let-down.



What could, and really should, have been an excellent adaptation turned out to be more like shoddy work.



I assume that the money for the sequel has now been sourced, either by New Line or some other studio, and the hype machine is getting into gear for it's uphill battle of enticing audiences back into cinema seats.

[Steve Crook]

name='dremble wedge']...

Actor Sam Elliot thinks he knows. According to an interview in the Evening Standard, Elliot – who basically played himself in The Golden Compass – is pinning the failure of the series directly on the Pope, saying: "The Catholic church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned. It did incredible at the box office. Incredible. It took $85m (£52m) in the States. The Catholic church … lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off."

$85m might sound like a lot of money. But it cost about $180m to make it and then probably a lot more millions to promote it. It didn't come close to making back what it cost in any reasonable time. That's usually a good indication why backers won't fund any more in the series. Then the reviews (professional and amateur) certainly don't help.



It was a flop

Mr Eliot is just trying to blame other people



Steve

[christoph404]

Hollywood actors often come up with extremely stupid comments and dialogue when they revert to speaking their own thoughts rather than from a script, Sam Elliot blaming the Catholic church for the cancellation of sequels to a dud film is just laughable and absurd. Nothing in this world would get in the way of hollywood cashing in on something that was a guaranteed moneymaker, the Golden Compass bombed in most respects but the bottom line is the $ and it didn't make enough to justify continuing.

[Azanti]

The film stank and was a very poor adaptation.