Rick Santorum’s cleverly tilted film, The Christmas Candle, brought in a whopping $2,258,620 million at the box office. The cost to make it was $7 million. Clearly, this movie was unsuccessful, whatever one might think of its artistic merits.
Yet Rick Santorum, who, it scarce needs be said, has a vested interest in his film, claims his film was more “authentic” than Noah and not only that, but more successful.
But let’s look at some things we do know:
According to Box Office Mojo, Darren Aronofsky’s film Noah, the film fake Christians hate, brought in $345,626,965 . The cost to make Noah was $125 million. Clearly, Noah was a successful film. It made money. This is what studios expect when they invest in a film: it will make a profit.
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Here’s the problem: Rick Santorum believes he was meant by God to make films. Therefore, because he has divine sanction, his films must be better than other films with religious themes. No other conclusion is possible. Even if his films are worse than other religious films.
Rating films is a subjective exercise. A film might make a great deal of money at the box office but be dismissed by critics. This cannot be said of the Christmas Candle, which was largely ignored by critics, and received generaly poor ratings, including a dismal 18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (by contrast, Tom Cruise’s new film, Edge of Tomorrow, received a 90 percent from the ratings site).
Now Rotten Tomatoes does not tell the whole story of course, but IMDb gives The Christmas Candle a 5.2 while John Carter (2012), considered a box office bomb, merits a 6.6. John Carter, by the way, did pay for itself, bringing in $284,139,100 against a budget of $250 million. John Carter got a 51 percent from Rotten Tomatoes.
Santorum says he wanted to portray faith in an “authentic way”:
That had a really great appeal to me, to make movies based on universal truths and that deal with faith in a way that is more representative of how it actually affects people and their lives, as opposed to the contrivance born of other, Hollywood, films.
Like Noah.
ChristianToday reports,
His passion is to see the quality of faith-based films improve, and be a real contender in the wider context of the entertainment industry. Santorum contends that big-budget Hollywood epics such as Darren Aronofsky’s Noah aren’t able to do scripture justice in the same way that Christian production companies are, despite their financial backing.
That’s right. Noah was “a very Jewish retelling of the story,” according to Rabbi Eliyahu Fink at Haaretz, But according to Santorum, only Christians can tell Jewish stories.
And Santorum will tell you why Noah bombed, even though it clearly didn’t bomb and as far more successful than his on film:
One of the reasons that Noah had such a great splash and then died like a rock, it sank, was that it wasn’t true, wasn’t authentic.
Of course, as we know, it was The Christmas Candle which sank, not Noah.
Santorum claims,
That’s a real issue with a lot of Hollywood productions, so we see an opportunity to present truths in a way that is authentic and is something people can relate to.
Relate to, but have no interest in seeing, apparently.
It’s no wonder Republicans can’t control the economy or the deficit, with math like this. But now we at least can understand how President George W. Bush could have won a war before it was even fought and then have the whole thing blamed on Obama when it turned out he really didn’t win at all.
Christian today says that Santorum “has high hopes for EchoLight, and indeed the entire faith-based film industry, which he believes will attract Christians and non-Christians alike.” It’s funny that Santorum says he wants nonbelievers to see his films too, because he doesn’t want nonbelievers in America, so they’ll apparently have to catch those films overseas.
Having made an unsuccessful film, Santorum says “We must make an impact in popular culture.”
He’s off to a rough start, and it remains to be seen whether his new studio, EchoLights, can “turn the industry on its head” as he claims, with its first offering, Hoovey, next year. According to Santorum, Hoovey will show Hollywood who the salt and light is in that town.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
