criterionforum.org

Noah is coming out next March.

If the studio thinks it's good enough, they could rush it a la Hitchcock

Maybe they could rush Noah, but I ould think it will need more post-production work than Hitchcock.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Noah is coming out next March.

Well shut my mouth!

Paramount won't be rushing Noah for Oscar consideration. They're spending a lot on it, and have March 28, 2014 firmly scheduled. April is the traditional month for Biblical epics, so I'm sure they've got their sights set on dominating that month.

This brings up a good question. When was the last Hollywood Biblical epic?

flyonthewall2983 wrote:This brings up a good question. When was the last Hollywood Biblical epic?

The Passion of the Christ in 2004 or Catherine Hardwicke's The Nativity Story in 2006. Depends on your interpretation of "epic" I guess.

Also Hollywood as both of those are independent rather than studio.

knives wrote:Also Hollywood as both of those are independent rather than studio.

In that case, maybe you'd have to go all the way back to The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1965 and John Huston's The Bible: In the Beginning in 1966. That was the end of the big cycle of studio-funded Biblical epics. I suppose you could count the animated The Prince of Egypt from 1998.

Jeff wrote:I suppose you could count the animated The Prince of Egypt from 1998.

Which was conspicuously sold as nondenominational when it was released! I know it's not theatrical but the recent, critically-maligned The Bible miniseries is clearly tapping into a strong desire on the part of the viewing public. I'd love there to be some intelligent mainstream Christian films again-- Higher Ground is the only recent honest attempt to portray Christianity I can think of, and that was an indie non-witnessing tool which earned its R rating, so I doubt it was ever in much danger of getting recommended from the pulpit.

Not Hollywood either but there was also that strangely glossy run of mid-to-late 90s Five Mile River production Bible TV movies: Esther, Moses, Joseph, David and so on. Including a version of Samson & Delilah directed by Nicolas Roeg!

The uplifting story of the time god decided to commit genocide on everyone.

That trailer was long and it felt even longer.

I also frequent the CHUD messageboards and they have a thread on this movie with a couple posters who have seen screenings of the film. Given their thoughts and the story details they've shared, it sounds like a hot mess.

If Russell Crowe doesn't sprout flowers in this one, I'll be so disappointed.

Darren Aronofsky + Passion project = :-&. If nothing else, this will probably be more fun that The Fountain, and thankfully not shot through a urine colored filter.

God, that wretched, mawkish music at the end. And while I'm addressing You, would You mind flooding the earth again before March? I'll even forfeit my spot on the ark; a pair of emus can take my place. Say what you want about emus, none of them made a film about Noah's ark using that music in the trailer. They deserve perpetuity for their discretion.

I only made it thru 40 seconds of that trailer, man does it look awful. Aronofsky is the most overrated director of our time.

God that was excruciating and I liked The Fountain.

Studios should band together and agree that they're never giving Aronofksy higher than a $20 million budget. The end product they get will be better for it.

Considering the word around the camp fire on what the studio feels about the film I suspect that the trailer is not representative.

Wait, I'm confused. The trailer is bad and the word around the camp fire is that the movie is bad. How's the trailer not representative?

This looks about exactly how I expected a 2013-filmed Biblical epic to look, not sure what everyone is dumping on it for?