General

Darwin movie too evolved for U.S. audiences

TIFF opener can’t find distributors

Creation, the British movie about Charles Darwin that opened the Toronto Film Festival, has been critically acclaimed and sold in almost every territory around the world. Yet the film cannot get distribution in the U.S. because its subject matter is considered “too controversial,” the Telegraph reports. The movie, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin’s “struggle between faith and reason” as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It also depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his 10-year-old daughter, Annie. U.S. distributors have resolutely passed on the film, concerned that it would “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 paper reports. Already the movie has sparked fierce debate. Movieguide.org, a site that reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as “a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder,” contending his “half-baked theory” directly influenced Adolf Hitler. Jeremy Thomas, the movie’s Oscar-winning producer, 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 Telegraph

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