News flash: Hollywood might have some new ideas after all. (Is that Adam Sandler we hear snickering in the background?)
That is the word we just received from director Stephen Simon who is bringing
Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch to the big screen later this month.
postdocme.net caught up with both the director and the author while they were in
Chicago as part of a multi-city tour to promote the film which will be released nationally on October 27th.
"This is a quintessentially non-Hollywood experience," says Walsch. "It is about being able to feel better about yourself as a human being. Something everyone can relate to no matter which religious background they come from."
"My Dinner with God was a title we first considered back when we first started working on the film in January 2005," interjects Simon when discussing the enormous task of translating the Conversations with God trilogy to film.
The Conversations with God series has enjoyed amazing success since the first book was published. Over seven million copies have been sold, and it has been has been translated into 34 languages.
"About half of the people who have come to the screening have read not the book. So there is the potential for it to reach an even broader audience than the book," says Simon.
The story begins, as Walsch tells it, several years ago, when frustrated and alone at 4:31 one morning, he writes an angry letter to God.
Much to his surprise, God answers back, providing pearls of wisdom and expressing the connectedness we all share.
Now Canadian actor Henry Czerny, who for the film bears an extraordinary resemblance to Walsch, takes on the lead role of the writer and his dialogue with God.
One the central themes of the movie
is how the subject of fear is questioned for its crucial part in our lives.
"Is it FEAR that you need in order to be, to do, and have what is intrinsically RIGHT? Must you be THREATENED in order to 'be good'? Who gets the final say about that? I tell you this; YOU are your own rule maker. You set the guidelines."
A film with a message (or two) about how to better conduct ourselves in everyday life. No, this is not your typical Hollywood film.
News flash: Hollywood might have some new ideas after all. (Is that Adam Sandler we hear snickering in the background?)
