‘Son of God’ Headed For Divine Box Office, But Trails Liam Neeson Thriller
Son of God, the cradle-to-grave-and-then-some biopic of Jesus, looks headed for a divine showing at the box office in its first weekend of release. But it is predicted to just miss out on the top spot, falling short of the $30 million projected for the new Liam Neeson thriller Non-Stop.
In the Bible, Jesus chased the moneychangers out of the Temple. But in real life, the Jesus flick Son of God is making multiplex cash registers go cha-ching all over the U.S.A. Movie industry analysts now peg the 20th Century Fox-distributed religious film to coming in at a cumulative weekend total of somewhere between $25.9 million and $28 million.
But Neeson has found a reliable niche with the mid-budget action genre. After successes with Taken and Taken 2, Non-Stop — budgeted at a modest-by-Hollywood-standards $50 million and released like his previous action films in the less competitive Spring season — appears to be proving once again that moviegoers enjoy seeing the 61-year-old Irish actor as a badass.
The movie, a high-concept airplane actioner in which Neeson plays an air marshal trying to stop an extortionist who threatens to kill a passenger every 20 minutes unless he’s paid $150 million, is projected to hit the $30 million mark in its first weekend, barely edging out Son of God.
Jesus may have said that rich men have less chance of getting into heaven than a camel has of squeezing through the eye of a needle — but Son of God producer Mark Burnett, creator of the long-running reality TV series Survivor and who already boasts a net worth of $400 million saw the potential to monetize the Jesus story and it looks like his bet is paying off.
However, whether the film has, as they say in Hollwyood, “legs” remains to be seen. The opening weekend box office was bolstered by strong advance online ticket sales, and by church and religious groups who bought large blocks of tickets for their parisheners. In some instances, church groups rented out entire theaters for their congregations to view the Son of God movie.
There are also questions as to how well the film will perform worldwide. In the Middle East, the film could be banned because visual portrayals of prophets are prohibited by the stricter versions of the Islamic faith. Jesus is considered a prophet in Islam, though Muslims reject the idea that he was the “son of god.”
As a result, the title Son of God itself could cause problems in some regions.
Critics have generally found Son of God to be a less than heavenly experience. On the movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the film received only 24 percent positive ratings out of 50 reviews.
But as would be expected given the makeup of the opening weekend crowds, audiences are much friendlier toward Son of God. With almost 20,000 user ratings in on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was scoring with audiences at an 82 percent positive rate.
