“It’s raining, Weathers, and it’s all your fault!”
Shocked. Shocked, I am. That folks who actually know the account from Genesis are disappointed when folks who , you know, don’t, and make a film about it anyway, comes as no surprise to me. Or as Variety puts it,
Despite its Biblical inspiration, Paramount’s upcoming “Noah” may face some rough seas with religious audiences, according to a new survey by Faith Driven Consumers.
The religious organization found in a survey that 98% of its supporters were not “satisfied” with Hollywood’s take on religious stories such as “Noah,” which focuses on Biblical figure Noah. Faith Driven Consumers has been tracking the viability of major Hollywood films courting faith-based audiences this year.
“As a Faith Driven Consumer, are you satisfied with a Biblically themed movie – designed to appeal to you – which replaces the Bible’s core message with one created by Hollywood?” asked the survey.
Faith Driven Consumers surveyed its supporters over several days and based the results on a collected 5,000+ responses. They are also the group behind IStandWithPhil.com, which campaigned for Phil Robertson in light of his suspension from A&E’s “Duck Dynasty.”
Seriously, if you want to check out Russell Crowe on the high seas, stick with Master and Commander: Far Side of the World.
Now THERE is a movie worth seeing. Pity they didn’t make a franchise out of Patrick O’Brian’s wonderful sea stories.
UPDATEs
The Hollywood Reporter on the film’s difficulties and challenges.
“…the depiction of Noah as a ‘crazy, irrational, religious nut’ who is fixated on modern-day problems like overpopulation and environmental degradation.”
The Super Bowl trailer:
Also, listen to a podcast by Barbara Nicolosi on Hollywood, the importance of story telling, and movies as being, for good or ill, the “Church of the Masses.” She mentions the plot of Noah, at length.
Peter Chattaway of the Patheos blog FilmChat has a number of posts up following the progress of Noah. Take a look.
yimcatholic.wordpress.com 
Your article title is extremely misleading, and that survey question would be considered a leading question.
Nowhere in your article do you discuss whether or not “Noah” DOES replace those themes, and that’s not what the survey asks either.
It asks if someone would be satisfied by Hollywood swapping those themes for something else, and of course, as a person who holds scripture and the faith in high regard in their lives, they would not be okay with that.
I haven’t seen the movie, and plan on making an informed decision on the film upon its release, but your article has no backing for its title, and as a Catholic writer, you should be somewhat ashamed and more careful of what you publish.
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“Variety” made the claims, Paul. Take it up with them.
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Are you not reporting the article as if it holds some weight? Variety can report what they want in terms of inaccurate and misleading headlines and data, I would expect and hope for more from a Catholic information source.
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Those updates are appreciated.
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Paul is correct.
Both Variety’s headline and the headline here clearly imply that the actual film has been screened for religious audiences — and that they overwhelmingly hated the actual film.
Instead, it turns out that when you pose a loaded, leading question to people, they give the response you clearly wanted them to give.
Reading between the lines, it appears that the survey sponsor, “Faith Driven Consumers” (“the group behind IStandWithPhil.com, which campaigned for Phil Robertson in light of his suspension from A&E’s ‘Duck Dynasty’”) is shamelessly trying to trash the movie sight unseen for not pandering to, well, ‘Faith Driven Consumers.”
The survey is worthless. There is no story here.
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And, Hollywood will stop making these kinds of films, strictly on the basis that, “religion doesn’t sell well.” That, as opposed to the reality that they just don’t know how to make biblical films.
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The question is, will this be the year of huge blockbuster Bible stories, that are worthwhile? Or will it be the year of the Bible as likened to Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit?” We’ll know soon.
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Yeah, I’m with Paul below. The question isn’t whether the movie is incorrect per the Bible’s themes. It asks “what if they are incorrect.” I think this is a mountain outof a molehill.
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I agree with Paul, and commented so on Twitter. The article doesn’t say anyone gives Noah thumbs down, it’s predicting that people will, which does seem to be some sort of concentrated effort to turn people off before the movie’s even released.
From day one I’ve been irritated by the reports that the movie will be about humanity’s sinfulness towards the earth, and not – as the Bible tells it – humanity’s sinfulness towards God. Everything I’ve read since seems to collaborate with those early reports, including an article I read today where Emma Watson talks about the “pro-environmental message” of the movie. But I’m still holding out hope that the movie will show humanity as overall sinful – towards God, towards the earth, towards each other – which I would support.
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I tried to read O’Brien’s books but frankly, was bored silly by them. They couldn’t hold a candle to Forester’s Hornblower series, and even the mediocre Bolitho stories of Alexander Kent.
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De gustibus non est disputandum.
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