No US release for Charles Darwin film
Paul Bettany stars as British naturalist Charles Darwin
A new film exploring the work of the father of evolution Charles Darwin has failed to secure a distributor in the US as the subject matter has been branded too controversial for religious audiences.
Creation, starring British actor Paul Bettany, follows the story of Darwin as he wrote the famous book On The Origin of Species, which outlined the process of evolution by natural selection.
However, Christian review website Movieguide.org has branded Darwin as "a racist, a bigot and a 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder".
The film's producer Jeremy Thomas said he is astonished that such attitudes still exist 150 years after the book was published.
"People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up," he said.
"We tried to make the film in a very even-handed way. Darwin wasn't saying 'kill all religion', he never said such a thing, but he is a totem for people," he added.
Bettany has had his brush with religious controversy before after he starred in The Da Vinci Code as Silas, an albino monk who performs self mutilation as part of his devotion to the Catholic organisation Opus Dei.
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I meant to include this link I found while researching the topic. It really makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with our government.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5705331.ece
I havent even heard of this film until I happened to stumble on it. Too controversial for the USA? The US has succumbed to religious pressure. This country allows sex, hardcore drug, and deadly violence, on 8PM cable tv. But refuses to release a film for religous purposes...This is a perfect example of the Church influencing our government.
Charles Darwin discovered Evolution. Science adapts, science changes, this is a known fact!
"A leading official declared yesterday that Darwin’s theory of evolution was compatible with Christian faith,"1
Science cannot be denied. I am sickened to be learning and living in a society so far in the past. To deny a movie because of religious controversy proves the ignorance of America.
I believe in Charles Darwin, I am a person who cannot prove or disprove a God. But I will not allow other's beliefs to prevent me from discovering the truth.
How many are aware that in Darwin's first edition he ended the book with a poetical rhapsody to the extraordinary diversity of life on a simple woodland bank that had evolved from the originals that God created? He started with a belief in God kicking creation off...followed by adaptations...and got bullied into dropping that. Also, he didn't start the idea of evolution (it was there in Empedocles in ancient Greece, although cyclical, and Darwin's own grandfather was thinking along those lines. Darwin only came out quickly with his own book when he learned that Wallace was about to publish his. It's not a one man thing.
I've got my fingers in my ears and I don't want
to hear your opinion. USA today.
Tough luck, they forget the internet will
inform and maybe educate the populace.
Unbelievable - what about freedom of speech in the so-called land of the free?