Creation
Science vs religion is the age old debate, does evolution explain our past and our development or did God create the world and everything in it in just seven days?
This week Paul Bettany returns to the big screen as naturalist Charles Darwin in his new movie Creation, a film which opened Toronto International Film Festival.
Darwin produced evidence that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors, which went against the beliefs of the church and his wife, and the movie follows the development of his most famous work The Origin of Species.
Despite being met well at the Toronto Film Festival and being surrounded in early awards whispers, you know how the Academy always love a biopic picture. Is this movie going to struggle? And is religion once again going to dictate the box office.
Creation is yet to land itself a distributor in America, despite it's cast of Bettany and Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly, but has been picked up in other countries around the world.
It seems that yet again American studios aren't too keen at upsetting the bible belt of America, bearing in mind they are telling a true story.
This debate about science and religion is once that has raged for many a year and it's sad that the American film industry is unwilling to explore the non-religious side, surely those who don't be live in Darwin's theory will simply avoid seeing the movie.
But it seems such a shame that they are going to miss out on a good movie, as well as a great performance from one of the UK's best acting talents.
But in recent year is seems that religion, mainly in America, has been dictating the box office and we saw this with Angels & Demons earlier in the year.
For anyone who has read the book the revelation of the Pope's bedroom antics would have been enough to enrage the Catholic Church and millions of Catholics around the globe... a bit of controversy on the big screen always a good thing.
But those who read the book and went into cinema's expecting a good dig at the Catholic Church, as I was, will be sorely disappointed as the part where the Pope fathers a child is completely missed out.
It seems that director Ron Howard was afraid to tackle the major theme that drives events in the book, in a word he wimped out to keep in with the Catholic Church and the religious side of the USA.
Another fine example of this came with the release of The Golden Compass. However it seemed that this film was never going to win as on one side were the hard core fans of the novel who claimed that religious content had been diluted and on the other were religious organisations who called the film anti-Christian.
Despite grossing a healthy, if not exceptional, $372 million at the global box office it seems that The Golden Compass, the first in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, may remain one of a kind due to the Christian protests.
And it looks like Creation is sadly going to follow in the footsteps of these movies, if it is released in the U.S. at all.
Creation is released 25th September.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Paul Bettany