Who knows what Jeremy Thomas, the producer of Creation a film on Charles Darwin's life, has and has not done to find a distributor in the U.S. He may have not shopped around enough, but recent polls indicate that it certainly is possible that U.S. distributors are telling him Creation starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolly is "too controversial for religious America.
Showbusiness editor for Telegraph in the UK reports that this film which details "Darwin's ˜struggle between faith and reason' as he wrote On the Origin of Species was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival, had a British premiere less than a week ago, and has been "sold in almost every territory around the world but cannot find distribution in the U.S. :
"Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.
"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.
"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.
"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.
Jeremy Thomas' filmography certainly makes it hard to believe the film isn't being released because of him. He won a Best Picture Academy Award for The Last Emperor.
It's much more likely that distributors are noting recent polls such as the Gallup poll released in February of this year that showed "only 39% accept the theory of evolution.
What's possible and not suggested by any of the British newspapers giving voice to the filmmakers struggling to gain U.S. distribution is that the recession in America is leading distributors to be ultraconservative in the projects they take chances on.
Despite reviews that have shown this film is very good, distributors may not want to risk losing money on something that doesn't come with a guaranteed audience like a sequel, remake, or a film based on a book would.
Still, it's largely unsettling that two hundred years after the birth of Charles Darwin and one hundred and fifty years after the publication of On the Origin of Species no distributor (not even the Weinsteins) are stepping forward to grab this up.
Gallup has been asking some form of this question for years now.
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