Bible Movies 2013 - Sigh

So we get The Wall Street Journal here in my office.  A coworker pointed out one of the Friday headlines:

Hollywood's New Bible Stories

Immediately my heart sank.  Oh no, I thought.  What are they attempting to muck up now?  

They had their radar set on Moses, Noah, Cain and Abel and...

Our Lady.
...
...
...

*Takes deep breath*

As soon as I saw Mary's name in the mix, I skimmed the article to figure out what they could possibly want with Our Lady.  The only line about the film about her was that it was being billed as a "prequel to 'The Passion of the Christ.'"

What the heck does that even mean?  

Since I couldn't find any worthwhile info in the news article (surprise), I took to the Internet to see what was being said about it.  It's being distributed by Lionsgate, the same company that took on distribution of my husband's recent production.

However, when you attempt to get information online about this project, all you come up with is snippets like "The prequel involves Mary’s impassioned defiance of the King in order to save her son, Jesus."

Again - WHAT?  Mary as DEFIANT?!

I finally tracked down the time-frame they're working with - Mary's young life from when she was about 8 down the line until she's about mid-twenties.  The focus will be on the challenges of being a young mother who is constantly running away from Herod as he looks for ways to kill Jesus.  

St. Joseph also is portrayed through his youth to his late 20s as Mary's best friend, confidante and "soul-mate."

...

I'm trying really, REALLY hard to hold out hope that they don't muck this up.  I'll be honest, though - I'm not holding my breath.  

Bah.  

And in all of their ads and such, they're billing this as a prequel because they've got "a writer" from Gibson's film on this project.  When the person is not important enough to name and is simply listed as "a writer" who has some sort of connection to a well-known movie... they're trying to sell you on the connection, not the actual talent of the writer.

Oh sigh.

I can only hope I'm wrong.

This entire idea makes me very uneasy.

Will Smith is doing the Cain vs. Abel one.  I believe it's called "The Redemption of Cain."  Now I love Will Smith.  I do!  I think he's an incredibly talented actor who is a truly decent human being.  But I'm still wary of his take on this.  

Apparently Russell Crowe will be our next Noah while Steven Spielberg takes another crack at Moses.

This coming year is going to see a lot of confused Christians, I think.  God help us.

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