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The controversy surrounding the recently released film, The Golden Compass, is in part because of the author's avowed atheism and in part because of the message of the film and its potential effect on children. This is a "fantasy Western," complete with Sam Elliot in a cowboy hat. There are good guys and bad guys with a confrontation and battle between the two (good wins). In addition to the human beings, there are also demons and witches and goblins — some good and some bad. Compare The Golden Compass to the first Star Wars film and to the Harry Potter...

NEW YORK, December 10, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - 'The Golden Compass", the atheist-inspired film which sought to replicate Narnia's success at the box office at Christmas two years ago has flopped by comparison. Based on the anti-Christian novel by Philip Pullman, Compass took in $26.1 million in its first weekend, whereas 'The Chronicles of Narnia' garnered $65.5 million on its weekend debut. The Catholic League, which organized a boycott of the controversial film, as it would lead children to reading the anti-Christian books, saw the poor box office showing as evidence of a successful boycott. League President Bill Donohue said, "Our...

Archbishop’s Column, Denver Catholic Register December 12, 2007 Sympathy for the devil: thoughts on ‘The Golden Compass’ When the first Harry Potter movie arrived in theaters several years ago, many Catholic families had divided views about the film. Some enjoyed it as an innocent and intriguing fantasy. Others avoided it because of its emphasis on magic. But the screen adaptation of Philip Pullman’s book, “The Golden Compass,” which opened in Denver on Dec. 7, will likely produce far more agreement. No matter how one looks at it, “The Golden Compass” is a bad film. There’s just no nicer way to...

Not the oasis it was intended to be, The Golden Compass failed to guide the box office out of the desert. A dispirited response to the fantasy adaptation combined with a largely pathetic group of holdovers led to the least attended early December frame in 13 years. The Golden Compass pointed to $25.8 million on approximately 5,600 screens at 3,528 theaters, which was about average for a live action fantasy. The turnout was well below half that of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Lord of the Rings movies, and the picture was...

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has withdrawn a positive review of the film "The Golden Compass," after more than a week of criticism about the church's apparent approval of a pro-atheism work. The review, which had said that the film "can be viewed as an exciting adventure story with, at its core, a traditional struggle between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of authoritarianism," was not available on the USCCB.org Web site last night.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - The man who killed four people at a church and missionary training center died of a self-inflicted shotgun wound, police said Tuesday. Matthew Murray, 24, was struck multiple times by a security officer at New Life Church Sunday but died after firing a single shot at himself, the El Paso County Coroner's Office concluded after an autopsy.

Hollywood is counting on the impending arrival of a naughty chipmunk, a treasure hunter and Will Smith to reverse a lingering box office malaise that deepened over the weekend with disappointing sales for “The Golden Compass.” The movie business is running into the 2007 home stretch with a serious limp. Measured in dollars, ticket sales for the crucial holiday season, which began Nov. 2, are down 6 percent through Sunday compared with last year, according to the box-office tracking company Media by Numbers. Attendance, meanwhile, is off by more than 10 percent. snip Through summer’s end the box-office story was...

Michael Medved says 'The Golden Compass' movie is a very complicated thing. It is based on the novel, Northern Lights (later renamed 'The Golden Compass'), which is the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.   Michael says this movie is good enough to drive kids to read the books. It is very entertaining and well-done. However, people must really question the message it is sending, which is an attack on the church. Michael says the message will probably go over the heads of the young children that see the movie, but older teens and adults should be...

LOS ANGELES, Dec 9 (Reuters) - "The Golden Compass," a $180 million family fantasy starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, did not meet expectations at the North American box office, opening at No. 1 but with weekend ticket sales of just $26.1 million, its distributor said on Sunday. New Line Cinema, a unit of Time Warner Inc, had hoped the film would pull in between $30 million and $40 million. "It's a little bit disappointing," said Rolf Mittweg, president and chief operating officer of New Line's worldwide distribution and marketing operations.

There was no Saturday miracle surge for New Line. The Golden Compass, an effects-laden family film starring Nicole Kidman with a reported budget of $200M, received a modest 16% increase from its opening day, posting an estimated $10.2M on Saturday. Assuming a Sunday drop of 33%, Compass will finish its opening weekend with a disastrous $25.84M. (For a comparison to other big budget, family-oriented films in this mold along with details about New Line’s dismal 2007 and Nicole Kidman’s box office cold streak, scroll down to my Friday Night report.) Disney’s Enchanted blew past $80M domestic with a $4.9M Saturday,...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "The Golden Compass," a costly fantasy starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, got off to a slow start at the North American box office and will likely fall short of opening-weekend expectations. New Line Cinema's $180 million film sold an estimated $8.8 million worth of tickets during its first day in theaters on Friday, according to data issued on Saturday by tracking firm Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com). After Saturday and Sunday sales are factored in, the film will come in at No. 1 with about $28 million when the studios issue their weekend estimates on Sunday,...

No one in Hollywood quite knows where "The Golden Compass" is pointing, though it appears to be south of blockbuster status. ...Unlike "Narnia" or the "Rings" and "Potter" movies, most of which hauled in more than $60 million in their first three days, "Compass" may open in the $30-million neighborhood, or worse, according to market analysts. [Yet] it's unlikely to spell financial catastrophe for New Line. The studio admits to a production price of $180 million, though some industry insiders believe the true cost soared past $200 million... Even so, the film was cofinanced by Royal Bank of Scotland, and...

The release of The Golden Compass as a major motion picture represents a new challenge for Christians – especially parents. The release of a popular film with major actors that presents a message directly subversive of Christianity is something new. It is not likely to be the last. Having seen the movie at an advance viewing and having read all three books of His Dark Materials, I can assure Christians that we face a real challenge – one that will require careful thinking and intellectual engagement. Why is this movie such a challenge? First of all, The Golden Compass...

SATURDAY AM: Friday night only $8.6 million from 3,528 theaters with anemic per screen average. Weekend estimate for $27 million. Cost of movie: $200+ million. Wildly expensive flop should sink New Line Cinema chairman Bob Shaye's chances to stay on when his contract expired in 2008... Full report coming...

It is worth asking in passing whether Jews could now be depicted with the same idiom as is now being deployed against Catholics It's not that often a train of thought unites Nicole Kidman and Peter Viereck, the American maverick conservative. But I had been to a screening of The Golden Compass, the film that Kidman effortlessly illumines, and I was thinking about the villain of the piece, which wasn't anyone at all so much as an institution called the Magisterium. In the Philip Pullman novel on which the film is based, the other word for the Magisterium is the...

Review: **** "The Golden Compass" is a darker, deeper fantasy epic than the "Rings" trilogy, "The Chronicles of Narnia" or the "Potter" films. It springs from the same British world of quasi-philosophical magic, but creates more complex villains and poses more intriguing questions. As a visual experience, it is superb. As an escapist fantasy, it is challenging. Teenagers may be absorbed and younger children may be captivated; some kids in between may be a little conflicted, because its implications are murky. They weren't murky in the original 1995 novel, part of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, a...

My box office gurus are telling me that New Line Cinema's holiday tentpole The Golden Compass is going to be a huge bomb. They predict an opening domestic weekend starting today only in the high $20s million from 3,528 theaters. That's disastrous because, with a pricetag of $200+ million without P&A costs, the fantasy epic should be making a minimum $50 million debut. Not to mention that the studio has spent big bucks marketing the heck out of the PG-13 pic based on UK author Philip Pullman's young adult book trilogy His Dark Materials. Problem is, Golden Compass has sparked...

Where are Harry and Frodo when you really need them? Here is a magical-mystery movie with everything money can eagerly buy: big-name stars, boffo effects, a story pre-sold in a mass-cult fantasy novel. The only thing "The Golden Compass" lacks, alas, is magic. And its mystery is a little too mysterious. The picture looks great — director Chris Weitz and his town-size team of digital technicians have created a fantasy world of misty cities, gleaming dirigibles and intricate steampunk gadgetry that really pops. But in attempting to cram as much as possible of Philip Pullman's 400-page novel into a two-hour...

Bishop Jerome Listecki of La Crosse Warns Against The Golden Compass December 6, 2007 Dear Pastor,My responsibility as a Bishop is the inform you as well and the faithful as to any movies, activities or entertainments that question or undermine the belief of our people and subvert the message of salvation which you as pastors deliver to your communities.On December 7, 2007, the movie The Golden Compass will be in theaters. The trailers on TV make it look like one of C. S.  Lewis' stories from the "Narnia Chronicles." The problem is that The Golden Compass comes from a...

ANTI-CHURCH MOVIE REVIEW ‘NARNIA’ KNOCKOFF WAY OFF COURSE FIVE minutes before “The Golden Compass" started, I was wondering when it was going to start. Forty minutes into it, I was wondering exactly the same thing. “The Golden Compass," a sort of “The Empire Strikes Harry Potter of the Caribbean," only with giant polar bears wearing suits of armor and punching each other in the face, reminded me why I stopped reading sci-fi and fantasy when I was 15. It was the nouns. “Hark thee, my fair Stenerud, and wield well this ancient benirschke. Journeyest then to the plain of Septien,...