| “Jesus Christ Superstar” showed Christ as a sexual being back in the ‘70s. “The DaVinci Code” again explored that concept a couple years ago, adding a marriage and a family to the Son of God and claiming it as truth. Now, Hollywood takes aim at the story of Jesus again with “The 13th Disciple.”
This time, Christ has a twin brother. And an evil one, at that. (After all, if he were a good twin brother, how scintillating would that be?)
But maybe it’s too soon to call the film sacrilegious.
“It will be made clear from the beginning of our film that it’s fiction,” producer Mario Stefan told Reuters of the film, which hasn’t yet begun shooting, anyway.
In fact, with a plot of two archaeologists discovering that Jesus’ twin brother has been reincarnated to the present day, it sounds like the film will quickly go off on a supernatural / horror film tangent. In other words, fantasy. And hey, I’ll take the Saturday-night Sci Fi Channel creature-feature just like the next person.
And given the backlash that came with “The DaVinci Code,” these filmmakers are wise to nip the buzz in the bud, so to speak:
“If you deal with religious themes, you have to be prepared and also (careful) that you do not hurt any feelings,” said Stefan. “Our film is not based on true events nor is it giving any religious message.”
Good or bad, I think perhaps Kevin Smith said much that same kind of thing when the Catholic Church – his own very denomination – attacked his film “Dogma.” (Have you caught Smith’s new WB show “Reaper,” by the way? I find the premise disturbing, but I can’t get enough of that Tyler Labine kid – he deftly swallows up every scene he’s in! So there you go – dress it up a little, and it’ll still sell!)
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