The film ["Creation"] was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia. However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution….. The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying." Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published. "That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said. "The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up."
Given the star power represented in the film (Jennifer Connelly, Jeremy Northam), and the accolades it is already accumulating worldwide, I find it hard to believe that US distributors who witnessed the success of comparably controversial biopics like Kinsey really truly are all going to give this film a miss.
More likely this is at least in part something of a cynical marketing campaign to whomp up controversy to attract wider audiences in anti-intellectual America to a cerebral film, not to mention provide a lingering aura of righteousness to give the vapid narcissistic members of the Academy some reason to think they are doing something noble -- rather than just indulging in the usual incessant self-congratulation -- when they go on to award the film with a string of Academy Award nominations down the road.
I mean, I could be wrong, it may really be that every US distributor is so cowed by the marginal minority of rabble-rousing feudalists in this country that they would pass by a chance to market a palpable prestige project with every sign of turning a nice profit, but I doubt it. Quite apart from all that, I do very much think it would be a good thing for American idiots to find themselves confronted for a couple of weeks with secular and Darwinian themes, even if only for half-minute snippets of prime-time commercial real estate.
Oh, and the film looks pretty good, too. Here's a trailer:
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