Philip Pullman to publish novel about 'the Scoundrel Christ'

The Guardian ^ | 7-Sep-2009 | Alison Flood

[Cronos]

I agree that he’s just looking for attention. But the problem is that if no outrage happens, people (at least the dumb ones) assume what he’s saying to be true — just like Dan Brown’s “novels”

[Brilliant]

You’re going to lose a lot more souls by making this guy’s book a financial success than you will by challenging it. If we’d ignored Brown’s novel, this novel would never have been written.

[Cronos]

That is debatable. I think that Dan Brown's novel would have been grasped by the simple minded (have you read that novel? he's not a good writer by any means, compare him to other potboiler writes and he's not even in James Hadley Chase's league).

[Brilliant]

I just saw the movie, which was a blockbuster even though it was a piece of trash. If it had not been for the controversy, you’d never have heard of it today.

[Cronos]

you may have a point

[LadyDoc]

it wasn’t a hit in the Philippines, but the anti Catholic stuff went over their head so the bishops didn’t write against it.

A lot of the anti catholicism of Pullman is very European, based on medieval cliches....and a lot of Catholics aren’t European.

[Cronos]

you’re right — you’ve proved brilliant’s point is, well, pardon the pun, brilliant

[PapaBear3625]

It bombed badly in the rest of the world except the UK and Japan.

The studio took a bath.

The production cost was $180M. They made $70M domestic plus $302M foreign, total $372.

The movie theaters get half the gross in the first two weeks, and it goes up from there, so between the movie theaters' cut and distribution costs, they lost money.