Richard Dutcher and Larry H. Miller Announce Production of God’s Army 2
Filmmaker Richard Dutcher and Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller announced at a press conference on Thursday, October 16th, that production on God’s Army 2: States of Grace will begin in Los Angeles this January. Miller will be a “significant investor” in the God’s Army sequel, although he will not be the sole investor. They also reaffirmed Miller’s financial support for The Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith.
God’s Army 2: States of Grace
God’s Army 2 will focus on the character of Elder Sandoval – a supporting character in the first God’s Army – with the role reprised by Luis Robledo. Other casting details were not released, although it is possible that other actors may reprise their God’s Army roles. In the sequel, Elder Sandoval gets unavoidably pulled into a gang incident, although Dutcher politely refused to give out any further details about the plot. “I told my wife the story and she said, ‘Wow!'” said Dutcher, mentioning that several others privy to the story had also responded similary but stating that audiences would just have to wait until the film is released to find out what those “wows” were all about.
Dutcher did indicate, however, that other faiths besides the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be represented in the film and represented very positively. “We are reaching out and trying to extend our audience. I think this film will appeal to religious people of other faiths. I think it’s going to be a powerful film.”
No release date for God’s Army 2 has yet been scheduled, although the film will be distributed by Excel Entertainment Group, represented at the press conference by the company’s president, Jeff Simpson. Neither Dutcher nor Miller would comment on the production budget for the film except to say that it’s “under $100 million” and that Miller’s involvement in “God’s Army 2” is “somewhat less than ‘The Work and the Glory’ and you can capitalize the S in somewhat.”
Pressed further, Dutcher said he feels there has been too much of a focus on budgets for LDS Cinema films and not enough attention on the stories. He recalled an early press conference where he said that he felt that there was a market for these kinds of films and that Latter-day Saints have some amazing stories to tell, saying that at times it seems to him as if everyone heard him talk about the market and no one paid attention to the part about the stories. “We really do have some wonderful, powerful stories to tell,” he insisted. “I don’t think audiences care what a film costs.”
He admitted that because film is such an expensive art form, it is also, by necessity, a business, but insisted that while filmmakers and investors should pay attention to such details, those numbers were not so important for the general public. “Our budgets are not so big as to be impressive. We’re not spending $200 million to make Titanic or anything like that.” At the same time, budgets are not so small as to be remarkable either. “We can’t point at our films and say, ‘Look what I was able to do with just $7,000.'”
The Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith
Even with Miller’s renewed support, The Prophet is still not completely funded, but Dutcher said that he will have a team continuing to work on funding for the film while he works on God’s Army 2 with the goal of beginning production on that film in the summer, hopefully with a release date during 2005. He noted that a 2005 release date would be appropriate, since it would be 200 years after the birth of Joseph Smith. “[It would be] kind of my birthday present to him,” he said. Dutcher also confirmed that both F. Murray Abraham and Val Kilmer have expressed an interest in portraying the roles of Governor Ford and Joseph Smith, Jr., respectively. However, no contracts have been signed yet and these actors may not actually end up in the film. There are still some details to iron out, and lot depends on the actors’ schedules – if they are available when it comes time for production.
Dutcher is eager for the project to go forward. “It’s a great story,” he said. “We have a good deal of funding for The Prophet, but not all that I need.” In the meantime, he has had time to sharpen a script which he says has been finished for some time. Lately, the changes have been minor – changing a word or taking out a line here and there – while waiting for the funds to commit it to celluloid. “It’s going to cross over in a big way,” Dutcher claimed. “Interest may be greater outside the church than within it because they aren’t already familiar with the story.”
Dutcher said that people who read the script ask him all the time if those events really happened. He said that he feels that because of the subject matter, the film needs to be historically accurate – more accurate than most films – while still telling a compelling story. “Joseph Smith was a powerful and very charismatic man. He lived in a very difficult and even a violent time. I want to give this story the treatment it deserves.”
Miller said that another reason the press conference was being held was to allow him to correct some erroneous statements that he had made about his support of The Prophet at a press conference a week ago. That press conference had been held to announce Miller’s support of another LDS Cinema film, The Work and the Glory. At the Work and the Glory press conference, Miller had said that he was surprised when a press conference he attended in 2001 turned out to be about The Prophet instead of Dutcher’s Brigham City – which is another film Miller had invested in. He had also said that he had never received any detailed information from Dutcher about The Prophet.
However, upon checking his notes it became apparent that his impressions about what happened were incorrect. Miller noted that as he has gone back to look at his calendar from that time period, he found that he had specifically written “Joseph Smith movie press conference” on the date in question. He said that the sense of surprise he remembered having must have been because The Prophet was moving forward on a quicker schedule than he had originally expected, and not because the subject of the press conference was a surprise itself. Miller had felt uncomfortable with this advanced production schedule at the time, because he had first wanted to see how Brigham City performed, since it was his first investment in film production. He also clarified that Dutcher actually had sent him a significant information packet, but because he had turned Dutcher’s project over to someone else in his organization to handle at that time, he had not been aware of it.
Miller also said that he had inadvertently hurt Dutcher’s ability to raise money for The Prophet. Whenever Dutcher approached potential investors, they wanted to know why Miller had pulled out. “Why did Larry Miller pull out? The answer is Larry Miller didn’t pull out,” he said as he announced his renewed financial support for the film. “I’ve committed a significant amount to The Prophet – more than for God’s Army 2 – but then it has a bigger budget.”
Dutcher praised Miller for his handling of the situation. “He didn’t have to do this. It takes some real character to sit here and admit you’ve made some mistakes. We all make mistakes. The way he’s handled this, he’s my hero again.”
Miller admitted he is still learning about the filmmaking business. >From an investor’s standpoint, he had been disappointed in the performance of Brigham City in the box office. But at the same time, the film is still the most critically acclaimed of all the LDS Cinema films to date, so he’s been trying to figure out the relationship between a film’s critical reception and its box office performance.
While Brigham City has not been profitable yet, Dutcher insists that films have a long shelf life and that eventually it will be profitable. In the meantime, Miller has shown that he is still willing to support selected film projects, having announced his support for three such projects in a little over a week. At the same time, he is being selective about the projects he funds, having said no to other films in the past.
Miller, who owns a multiplex movie theater in Sandy, Utah, said that he isn’t worried about a possible glut of LDS-market films in theaters. Although there have been as many as four these films playing in his theaters at the same time this fall, he said, “I think it’s still an expanding market. As an exhibitor, we’ve seen no indication of it slowing down. To me, each [film’s] got to stand on its own.”
Dutcher, on the other hand, is just excited to be once again making a film. It has been two-and-a-half years since Brigham City was released, and he has often been bombarded with questions about when the next film will be coming out. Last year, Dutcher was 7 weeks from production on The Prophet before having to back off on his plans. He feels it will be good to be able to focus on production again. There was a smile of excitement and relief on his face as he said, “We’re funded [for God’s Army 2] and ready to go.”
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