Box Office: This Week’s LDS Film Summary
By Thomas Baggaley

Gloria Film Festival

The Gloria Film Festival (formerly known as the Salt Lake City Film Festival) is being held Oct. 16-18  in West Valley City, Utah. The festival offers a full slate of screenings, workshops, panel discussions and other activities. The festival is open to filmmakers of all backgrounds. Its focus is on artistically accomplished films which are also ethical. The films at the festival could be called “family friendly,” although they are in no way specifically intended as “family films” and certainly are not “children’s films.”

For a list of the films competing in the festival and screening times, click here

For a list of festival workshops, click here

Click here for information regarding panel discussions and other festival events.

There are quite a few LDS filmmakers involved in the festival as organizers, panelists, volunteers and competitors – too many to list here. Latter-day Saint filmmaker Wayne L. Lee is the founder of the festival. Our recommendation: Go and enjoy as much of the festival as you possibly can. It all looks good to us!

Certainly one of the highlights of the festival will be screenings of the eagerly anticipated LDS Cinema movie Saints and Soldiers, directed by Ryan Little. As LDS film fans know, Little was the director of Out of Step, which has been the most critically acclaimed LDS Cinema movie yet released, aside from Dutcher’s God’s Army and Brigham City. Little’s Saints and Soldiers will not hit theaters for many months now, so this is a rare chance to see it. Many in the industry think that Saints and Soldiers may the odds-on favorite to break the longstanding record held by Brigham City as the LDS Cinema film with the highest marks from professional reviewers.

Another hot ticket at Gloria is Brazilian Latter-day Saint filmmaker Daniel M. Skaf’s extraordinarily interesting and quite inspiring documentary The Birthing of Iosepa, which is about Polynesian Latter-day Saint culture generally and specifically about the creation of a traditional double-hulled Hawaiian voyaging canoe by Latter-day Saints from a variety of Polynesian backgrounds.

If you haven’t already seen it, you can check out Latter-day Saint filmmaker Paul Larsen’s autobiographical documentary Chasing a Good Day to Die, wich recounts his adventures with peyote and the Native American Church. Larsen has taught film at the University of Utah and BYU.

Austrian Latter-day Saint filmmaker Christian Vuissa is now in post-production on his much-anticipated feature film Eat, Drink and Get Married (starring Heather Beers). His last short film was the award-winning Unfolding, which is now available on video, but looks great on the big screen. Unfolding will be shown at Gloria as part of the Short Films Program A, along with Salt Lake City-based Latter-day Saint filmmaker Spencer Christensen’s short documentary Reading is Fundamental and Mormon filmmaker Lareena Smith’s autobiographical documentary Polygamy and Me, which portrays her strange trip out of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and into a polygamous culture. Latter-day Saint filmmaker Ethan Vincent’s short film Claims and Dividends will be screened as part of the Short Films Program B.

There are many other films been shown at the Gloria Film Festival, which features work from filmmakers from around the world. This is one of the nation’s best film festivals for checking out films that are cinematically exceptional and also worthwhile and ethical.


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The Book of Mormon Movie’s Got Legs?

In its fourth week in theaters, The Book of Mormon Movie actually grossed more than it did in its third week, even though it played in fewer theaters and hadn’t yet opened in Arizona, Georgia or Hawaii (its next scheduled stops in the United States). The weekend numbers did drop, but again this was a relatively small drop (only 10.2%), while the numbers from Monday through Thursday were actually up from the previous week. Is this because of strong word-of-mouth – theatergoers who recommend it to their friends? Maybe, but usually even the best films experience a weekly drop in attendance the longer they play in theaters, regardless of what happens with word-of-mouth and repeat audiences. Credit for this could go to ads for the film which now say “Leaving Soon” and have helped to motivate those who had procrastinated the day of their attendance to get into the theaters and see the film before they’ve missed their chance. Remember: If you do not see this movie, you forfeit your chance to ethically and in good conscience criticize or praise
it.

Day of Defense Released

Last weekend saw the release of yet another LDS Cinema film, Day of Defense, meaning theatergoers in the Salt Lake City and Provo/Orem areas actually had the choice of seeing any of four LDS-market features (if you count The Legend of Johnny Lingo) this past weekend. In a couple of theaters, three of these theaters were playing on different screens at the same time (although we didn’t find a theater that was playing all four of them). To run through the list, these four films would be 1) The Legend of Johnny Lingo, 2) The Work and the Story, 3) The Book of Mormon Movie and 4) Day of Defense. And that’s just in Utah. The R.M., although it has already been released on video and DVD, is apparently still playing in one theater in La Brea, California – albeit with just one scheduled showtime per day – and of course, The Book of Mormon Movie is
also playing in Idaho and Nevada and The Legend of Johnny Lingo is appearing in theaters in California, Colorado and Florida as well.

Unfortunately, we do not have any box office numbers for most of these films this weekend. In fact, The Book of Mormon Movie is the ONLY one of these five films to report a box office number to the usual reporting channels, so we can’t tell you how they all did.

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Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite is a feature film, now in post-production, written and directed by Latter-day Saint filmmaker Jared Hess, a graduate of BYU film school.  The film is an expansion of Hess’s award-winning short film “Peluca” which took home honors from the Slamdance Film Festival. Article about Napoleon Dynamite, which is being shot in Preston, ID. More info: See the Ellen Dubin  website.

Suddenly Unexpected

Mark Potter, director of the low-budget production Suddenly Unexpected, plans to screen SU in Utah theaters in January 2004. Suddenly Unexpected was made in Houston, Texas with a predominantly local, non-LDS cast.

 
Links to Other Articles about Film

Daily Universe article about Richard Dutcher’s new organization, Utah Filmmakers Alliance

BYU grad makes documentary about Muslim students at BYU.

LDS producers about to release Cat in the Hat movie starring Mike Meyers. In addition to its two LDS producers, the big budget Hollywood flick also stars Latter-day Saint child actress Danielle Chuchran as Thing One.

Porter Rockwell feature is in pre-production. Porter Rockwell was Joseph Smith’s famously bearded body guard. Rockwell has been depicted in low-budget feature films before. This new movie is to be produced by NuWorlds, the makers of Day of Defense, which is now in theaters. Casting for Rockwell will begin in 2004.
 
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Gladys Knight DVD Released

Gladys Knight, best known as one of the world’s most revered and respected Motown generation singers, made her feature film acting debut in Hollywood Homicide, which was released this week on DVD and video.

Knight has a supporting role as the mother of a witness to a murder. Her character is a largely retired backup singer for a famous Motown singer. The movie’s central detectives, Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett, visit Gladys Knight’s character in her home when they are trying to locate her son, the witness to the crime they are investigating.

Director Ron Sheldon mentions Gladys Knight in his director’s commentary on the DVD.  He said, ” She just signed a five-year deal with the Flamingo in Vegas, so her career is going strong, and she said she was the luckiest person in show business to have such a long singing career. But she earned it, that’s for sure. And this was her first movie. She’d done a little television a long time ago, but this was her first movie.”

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Prediction

We were right, LDS-themed feature films are doubling every year with 8 in 2003.  Back in November  2002,  we observed that the number of LDS-themed feature films has been doubling every year since the “genre” began: 1 in 2000 (God’s Army); 2 in 2001 (Brigham City; The Other Side of Heaven); 4 in 2002 (The Singles Ward; Out of Step; Jack Weyland’s Charly; Handcart). We predicted that the trend would continue and that in 2003 at least 8 LDS Cinema movies would be released.

Our prediction was right on. This year has already seen the theatrical release of: (1) The R.M., (2) The Work and the Story, (3) The Book of Mormon Movie, Vol. 1: The Journey, and (4) Day of Defense. Furthermore, (5) Pride and Prejudic” has been filmed and is scheduled for a theatrical release this holiday season, when it will be distributed by Excel Entertainment. The Best Two Years (6) has already already been shown in a few “sneak peek” screenings open to the public in commercial theaters, although its full-fledged theatrical release (through HaleStorm Entertainment) has been postponed until February 2004. Saints and Soldiers (7) has been shown in multiple film festivals across the nation, although its general release will not come until early 2004. Finally, (8) The Legend of Johnny Lingo was distributed nationally to theaters by MGM and can be counted as at least a half (made by LDS filmmakers, inspired by a favorite LDS short film, although its characters are not actually LDS) and Suddenly Unexpected can count as at least a half (LDS-themed feature-length film made by LDS filmmakers, although it has only played for two weeks in 1 Houston movie theater and one week in 1 theater in Iowa). That’s 8, folks.

The total number of movies released in U.S. commercial theaters in will be about 480. 8 movies is 1.7% of that total. Latter-day Saints make up about 1.8% of the U.S. population. [The population of the United States is 288 million people. The number of Latter-day Saints in the U.S. is 5.3 million, according to official Church estimates, year end 2001. Not all attend, but the number of people who identify themselves as LDS or say their religious preference is LDS is nearly this number, according to comparisons of Church records from the Glenmary county-by-county sets (1999/2000) to the B. Kosmin NSRI/ARIS surveys out of City University of New York).

So, essentially, we’ve already achieved parity.

But parity is for sissies. Jews, Catholic priests, homicide detectives, rap stars, and brainy female scientists who look like fashion models have never settled for parity at the movies. Nor should Latter-day Saints. If the doubling trend continues, there will be 16 LDS-themed feature films released in 2004, which would could be equated to over-representation. But even over-representation in the number of movies released won’t make up for under-representation of our people among characters in studio-released movies. (And where are the LDS-themed TV shows, or LDS characters in prime time?)

If the number of LDS-themed feature films really doubled every year, and the number of movies released remained constant, ALL movies released in the U.S. would be LDS-themed movies by the year 2012.

This won’t happen, of course. In fact, there will probably not even be 16 LDS-themed movies released next year, which means the trend will have slowed or leveled off. Where would 16 possibly come from? Nowhere near that number are scheduled for 2004 release.

HaleStorm Entertainment’s The Home Teachers is a sure thing for a January 2004 release. It’s already essentially complete and HaleStorm has a reliable track record. Christian Vuissa/Robert Farrell Smith/Heather Beers movie Eat, Drink and Get Married will certainly be released. It is now in post-production. That’s just two Saints and Soldiers and The Best Two Years will receive wider-than-before theatrical releases in early 2004, but they’re done and we already counted them as 2003 releases. American Grace or Anxiously Engaged are two movies that a year ago we suggested might be released in 2003, but weren’t. American Grace has long since been essentially complete, but we have no reason to believe that it will be released to theaters in 2004. And Anxiously Engaged was never made, and we have no reason to believe that it will be.

HaleStorm is planning to wait until early 2005 to release Church Ball. A late 2004/early 2005 release has been announced for the recently announced $7.4 million The Work and the Glory adaptation. 2005 seems more likely. Richard Dutcher expects to film God’s Army 2 soon, so a 2004 release date seems entirely possible (and advisable lest the lead actors returning from the first film age too noticeably).

Other than that, previously announced projects include Dutcher’s The Prophet, the T.C. Christensen/Elizabeth Hansen big screen Saturday’s Warrior, and the Scott  Swofford/Peter Johnson Book of Mormon adaptation Voice from the Dust. None of these nor other previously announced pictures are scheduled for actual filming.

A lot can change in the coming months. The box office success or failure of movies currently in theaters and others soon to be released will likely have important repercussions with regards to funding and access to theaters. Eight new movies in 2004 seems possible, although I’m not sure where they’ll all come from, but 16 simply won’t happen.