Charles Darwin movie "too controversial for America"?

The UK's Telegraph is reporting that Creation, starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly in a story about Charles Darwin's difficulties writing Origin of the Species, has failed to find a distributor in the US because evolution is too controversial here.

Well, I'm calling B.S. on this. Granted, there are way too many people in America who have bought into this "intelligent design" malarkey. But that can't be the real reason why American distributors are passing on the film. This is a country, let us remember, in which Bill Maher's Religulous played in theaters not so long ago. That was a deliberately provocative movie that came out and said, in no uncertain terms, that there's no God and you're a dope if you think there is, and somehow it made it through its run without people burning down theaters. Creation sounds like a much more sedate affair, and if it found an American distributor it would probably be denounced on The 700 Club and Ben Stein would make the rounds of the cable news channels being snippy about it, but that's about it.

Frankly I think Jeremy Thomas, Creation's producer, is trying to stir up controversy himself by saying that the film has failed to find US distribution because of the debate here over evolution. I think American distributors probably passed on it because the UK distributor was asking for too much money, or because they thought it was too cerebral (i.e. boring) for US audiences, or something like that. Thomas is saying we can't see the movie here because of American religious craziness, knowing that a headline like that is going to get Americans arguing (I've already fallen for the bait), which will probably make the movie much more likely to eventually find a distributor. The UK press is usually thrilled to run with a story about those wacky, ass-backward yanks, so they reported Thomas' take as if it was the truth.

That's what I hope, anyhow. Because if Thomas is right, yikes.

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