Monday, June 09, 2008
Religu-what?
I saw a tape of the segment we filmed a week ago that was aired on HITN (the huge Spanish network). It turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, it's not on the website so unless you caught it on television you probably won't be able to see it. Bummer.
In other news, I just saw the trailer for Bill Maher's documentary, Religulous. I will definitely have to go see this movie, and maybe talk about it on the podcast. As far as I know, Maher has never directly claimed to be an atheist, so I'm not quite sure what his angle is for this. From the trailer, it looks like he's just going to be picking on the easy targets (the extreme fundamentalists), a strategy more and more religious skeptics seem to be taking. I guess I can always hope the final film will be more balanced and actually get into the good things religion is responsible for, but the trailer doesn't give me much to go with.
This looks like a movie that will send Christians into an uproar. Don't be surprised if as we get closer and closer to the October release date, the marketing campaign really starts to kick in. If the studios are smart they will milk this thing for all it's worth, and do whatever they can to increase the controversy. The Passion of the Christ made hundreds of millions off of controversy, and this could do the same thing if promoted properly. The only danger is that they risk alienating too many conservative Christians who will boycott it... but I guess the plan is to put more atheist butts in the seats to take their place.
This is the first documentary I've seen advertised in years that looks like it could have potential to surpass Fahrenheit 9/11 in terms of the box-office draw. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
In other news, I just saw the trailer for Bill Maher's documentary, Religulous. I will definitely have to go see this movie, and maybe talk about it on the podcast. As far as I know, Maher has never directly claimed to be an atheist, so I'm not quite sure what his angle is for this. From the trailer, it looks like he's just going to be picking on the easy targets (the extreme fundamentalists), a strategy more and more religious skeptics seem to be taking. I guess I can always hope the final film will be more balanced and actually get into the good things religion is responsible for, but the trailer doesn't give me much to go with.
This looks like a movie that will send Christians into an uproar. Don't be surprised if as we get closer and closer to the October release date, the marketing campaign really starts to kick in. If the studios are smart they will milk this thing for all it's worth, and do whatever they can to increase the controversy. The Passion of the Christ made hundreds of millions off of controversy, and this could do the same thing if promoted properly. The only danger is that they risk alienating too many conservative Christians who will boycott it... but I guess the plan is to put more atheist butts in the seats to take their place.
This is the first documentary I've seen advertised in years that looks like it could have potential to surpass Fahrenheit 9/11 in terms of the box-office draw. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 6/09/2008 12:54:00 AM 
