WWJD: The Movie

From the ChristianityToday.com website is an article by Mark Moring about an upcoming film based on classic Charles Sheldon book, In His Steps.

(EXCERPT) According to a press release from Nasser Entertainment, Charles Sheldon’s classic Christian book, In His Steps, is being made into a film called What Would Jesus Do?

Production by Nasser Entertainment begins in May, but no potential release date was given. The company specializes in made-for-TV programming.  The film will feature John Schneieder (Nip/Tuck, CSI, Bo Duke in TV’s Dukes of Hazzard), country singer Adam Gregory, and Maxine Bahns (The Mentalist, The Lost Tribe).

The film will closely follow the story of In His Steps, following four individuals — a singer, a newspaper editor, a wealthy philanthropist, and a minister who lost his faith – all vowing to walk in the steps of Jesus, with every decision based on the one question, “What would Jesus do?”

Here’s hopin’!

To read the full article head on over to ChristianityToday

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The Christian SPINAL TAP

An article from ChristianityTodayMovies.com from Brett McCracken about Jesus People, an upcoming mockumentary where Hollywood believers spoof the evangelical subculture – and thus themselves.

(EXCERPT)  Will anyone ever make a Christian version of Spinal Tap? For fans of the Christopher Guest-style mockumentary (Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman) who have grown up in the easily parodied evangelical subculture, we now have an answer. And its name is Jesus People: The Movie.

 

Jesus People , a Christian-made parody of evangelicals, was created by professional comedy writers and actors in Hollywood. The film is a feature-length version of a six-episode online series that debuted early in 2008 on Independent Comedy Network (ICN), sort of a “minor league” for shows hoping to make the jump to the bigs—traditional TV or, in this case, film. It’s currently on the 2009 festival circuit; it will screen at the Gospel Music Association’s annual celebration week in April, and will likely be released on DVD in the late summer or fall.

The Jesus People online series—a web hit, with more than 500,000 views—tells the satirical story of Cross My Heart, a Christian dance-pop band-in-the-making. The four-person, coed group—an homage to Christian dance-pop classics like Jump 5—includes an aging CCM pop star trying to resuscitate her career after a sex scandal (played by Edi Patterson), a newbie Christian party girl with a wild streak (Lindsay Stidham), a goody-goody fundamentalist with a fondness for God’s wrath (Damon Pfaff), and a token minority member who plays the sympathetic everyman (Rich Pierrelouis). The cast also includes the group’s pastor/manager/entrepreneurial handler Pastor Jerry (Joel McCrary), and an impressive array of guest stars from across the comedy spectrum, including SNL‘s Victoria Jackson, The Office‘s Kate Flannery, Will & Grace‘s Tim Bagley, and Waiting for Guffman‘s Deborah Theaker.

Most of the cast from the web series returned for the feature film version, as did director Jason Naumann and writers Dan Ewald and Rajeev Sigamony. For the most part the story is the same as the online version, just expanded a bit, giving a more embellished, Behind the Music background to Cross My Heart’s rise from a fledgling music group to a superstar CCM success story. Where the web series concludes with the band shooting its first music video, the film shows Cross My Heart further along in their career, with a hit environmentalism/apocalypse-themed song—”Jesus Save the World”—catapulting them to the big time.

Catch the FULL ARTICLE HERE

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Save the Wales

(FEB 19, 2007) Mark Moring of ChristianityToday.com sits down to an interview with veteran Hollywood Producer Ken Wales.

“Save the Wales”

(EXCERPT) Veteran Hollywood producer Ken Wales has long wanted to bring the story of John Newton to the big screen. He intended to call it Amazing Grace, titled after the classic hymn penned by Newton, a former slave trader who had undergone a radical conversion to Christianity.