Richard Dutcher on LDS Film:

[House of Mustard]

Richard Dutcher (God's Army, States of Grace, Brigham City) spoke last week, and offered this analogy about LDS film:

"There was this girl who no one was paying any attention to. But I started flirting with her and saw her potential and I saw how beautiful and intelligent she could become. She could be perfect. I fell in love with her. But then she started dating other men. She started fornicating with pimps and morons. I told them how fragile she was, but they wouldn't listen. Now she's fading back into obscurity. She's dying. The end."

(Quoted on A Motley Vision: http://www.motleyvision.org/?p=268 )

[Fellfrosch]

Halestorm: pimps and morons.

[Skar]

I know what the problem is with the LDS cinema market.

Good thought provoking films have things in them that, while not inherently wrong, cause most mormons to pan the films as immoral without a second glance.

For example,   "States of Grace" Dutcher's second missionary film is powerfully moving, full of truth, and has great characters and a great story.
**spoiler**  
However, it includes a man who has positive religious interaction with the missionaries but does not convert to mormonism.  That's enough to kill it for most of the mormons I know.  But the film also includes a sympathetic character, a missionary, who is sent home for fornication and later attempts suicide.  Kiss of death.
**/spoiler**

It is definitely not a "Jack Weyland" movie.  None of Dutchers films are.  They are rejected by the "mormon audience" in a sort of knee jerk negative reaction to anything that suggests that real mormon life is not G-rated.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

so it's the audience causing hte problem.

[House of Mustard]

In more ways than that.  Another point made on Motley Vision is that the highest grossing LDS film in Utah was The Other Side of Heaven, making 1.7 million in 23 weeks.  There just isn't funding to support much LDS stuff right now -- and lack of funds will keep LDS movies crappy and/or experimental.

[Spriggan]

You should ask EUOL about Richard Dutcher next movie, apparently he feels there's a good market for a rate R Mormon slasher flick, so I really don't care what the man has to say about LDS films.

[Skar]

Sounds like hearsay mixed with Spriggan's famous cynical gullibility.

I do know that Dutcher's film, "Brigham City," (a story about a mormon bishop who is also the sherriff in a small Utah town who has to deal with a serial killer come to visit) was at one point badly mispackaged.

The marketing firm that packaged it made the DVD cover look like a slasher film.  The title in dripping blood with just a pair of spooky eyes on a black field.  Maybe that's where the "slasher film" bit came from.

[Skar]

In more ways than that.  Another point made on Motley Vision is that the highest grossing LDS film in Utah was The Other Side of Heaven, making 1.7 million in 23 weeks.  There just isn't funding to support much LDS stuff right now -- and lack of funds will keep LDS movies crappy and/or experimental.

And, of course, with mostly crappy, experimental and underfunded films dominating what little market there is, a wide mormon following will not grow.

Nasty cycle that.  I think it's sad that Dutcher is already so cynical about it.  Sure he's strapped for cash because of the poor response to his films but 3 films does not a tradition of excellence make, especially since most people in the market he's trying to tap, while they have probably heard of God's Army, probably couldn't tell you who Dutcher is, and he's the only real unifying facter across the three films.

It's also interesting that the money made on the LDS film and on the non-LDS film almost perfectly reflects the ratio of mormon to non-mormon in Utah.  Of course, after 23 weeks the Pirates number will be much bigger...

[Spriggan]

Sounds like hearsay mixed with Spriggan's famous cynical gullibility.

Nope, I'm dead serious.  Ask Fell he was there.

[Skar]

Well, give us the details then.  Who said what, exactly?

[Spriggan]

EUOL did, he went to the screenplay reading Dutcher had a few weeks ago.  All he said was it Dutcher thinks there's a market for an R rated LDS movie and that the screen play was a slasher flick (with angles going around killing people in SLC).

[stacer]

Were protractors involved, too?  

[Spriggan]

Lord ruler and lady protractor were off on vacation, thus the angles running amok.

[Shrain]

Hahahaaaaahaa.

Ah, that's classic. In fact, it shall be one of my new tagline sigs.

[EUOL]

Those are two separate events, Sprig.  Dutcher is on record for the comment that he believes that there is a market for LDS R rated films.  It's one of his more famous quotes.

In a completely separate turn, he is making a horror movie--likely R rated--as his next movie.  It is NOT a Mormon movie.  I, however, have been asked not to share details of the plot or ideas involved.  I have read the entire thing, however, and it is rather gruesome in places.