Son Of God: Set To Be A Jesus Story For A New Generation

From the people who brought you History Channel’s “The Bible” bring you “Son of God”. The movie hit over 3,000 theaters today, and is getting big play by several people nationwide. Several churches have sold out theaters for the movie so that their members can go for free. Other nonprofits have done similar and some churches are even giving away tickets so that people can see the movie without any excuse. In a word, this movie is going to be “massive”.

The last Jesus centered movie that had this much behind it was Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”, which ended up making in the hundreds of millions in the theater alone. It took a different look at Jesus as it focused on the last days of Christ where he died on the cross. It was Rated R due to high blood and violence, where Son of God is not taking a brutal perspective to the story of Christ right off, but will certainly not shy away from it in parts.

The movie is set to focus on the life of Jesus and runs around two and half hours. Some critics have claimed that the movie drags at times, but is still incredibly impressive and worth the investment.

As mentioned, The Son of God is from the same group that brought us “The Bible” on History Channel. Husband and wife team Mark Burnett and Roma Downey are the people who brought us the series and both made it a big deal to make sure the major biblical stories were covered in the series, including parts of Jesus’ life that we will see in the movie.

The series was beloved by many, yet it was scoffed at by some critics who picked at some of the inaccuracies. While it is fine to point out the issues, it brought in massive ratings for History Channel. This led to NBC picking up a sequel to the series called “A.D”. It will obviously focus on what happened after the death of Christ.

Interestingly enough, the same man who played Jesus in The Bible series, will also do so in Son of God, Diogo Margado. Many fans of The Bible love that he will be in it as he is said to be the perfect person for the role. Jesus was said to be a beautiful man that women were certainly interested in, yet his goals as the son of God were far more important to him than anything else. Margado fits this thought, so while women will be interested the casting makes total sense in theory to the story. Some however have dubbed him “Hot Jesus”.

Margado is also a firm believer in the word of God and calls The Son of God movie “the greatest love story ever told”. For any good story to be told on screen, the actors need to be invested in the role. It makes the performance far superior than if they were not.

The producers of the film in Burnett and Downey are highly invested in the project and how it will reach the people. They told The LA Times:

“Yes, it is a movie, but it is more than a movie. This is an evangelizing tool.”

They are right, as this could very well reach a massive nationwide audience that the History Channel was unable to reach with The Bible. Burnett is no slouch in the field of producing or TV. He is a successful producer with “The Apprentice”, “The Voice”, and “Survivor”. Meanwhile Downey was a co-star in the hit series “Touched by an Angel”.

The two obviously know the media business and what works for it.

This is obviously the year of the biblical movie; why that is has yet to be determined. Son of God is the first of some very big movies to hit the box office this year including “Noah” which stars Russel Crowe and Emma Watson. The movie is said to have a $200 million budget, but many expect them to make a lot of money from it as it’s the first take of Noah to the big screen.

Christian Bale is starring as Moses in “Exodus” which is another big play movie that has a lot of people flocking to theaters.

Other direct to DVD movies will also be of note, such as “God’s Not Dead” which stars Kevin Sorbo as a teacher who challenges a student to prove God’s existence.

While all of these movies have a lot of hype and hope around them, Son of God will see the most love right off. This is mainly due to it being a Jesus adaptation, but also because the movie is said to be presented in a way that a new generation can grasp and follow instead of an old fashioned take that hurt movies such as Passion of the Christ and other prior.

The film is expected to see a $15-20 million gross opening weekend, as it still does have competition to face off against such as the beloved “The Lego Movie” according to pre-release audience surveys. Many believe it could get higher numbers, but it all depends on how people flock to it. Some expect to see surprisingly high numbers. The creators hope the movie will appeal to Christians as well as Non-Christians and it certainly could do so.

The Son of God is certainly a new take on the story of Jesus, and that seems to be what is selling people on it. Obviously it keeps to the true story, but is by no means trying to bring you a recycled movie from the past. The story is the same, but the presentation is different. In this new time, this is the Jesus story people need to see.