TV Gets Religion: Pilots With Biblical Themes

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TV Gets Religion

For Fall, Programmers Weigh
Pilots With Biblical Themes:
Revelations, Troubled Priests
By BROOKS BARNES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 28, 2005; Page B1

Now is the time in Hollywood when broadcast networks decide what shows TV audiences will want to watch in the season starting in September. Judging from several comedy and drama pilots now in progress that are already getting close consideration, America's couches will be turning into pews.

A splashy drama called "Book of Daniel" is in development at NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., while Viacom Inc.'s CBS is building a supernatural thriller around a character described as "a brilliant physicist with strong religious beliefs." News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, has "Briar + Graves," which the producers describe as "The X-Files" goes to church.

It's the television industry's answer to the cash-generating power of biblical stories put through a pop-culture spin cycle. Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" was one of the top box-office hits last year, and Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" has sold 25 million copies. Meanwhile, author Tim LaHaye's biblical "Left Behind" novels have racked up sales of some $650 million.

"We try in the entertainment business to find veins of interest to tap, and religion is a huge one that is currently very underserved," says Kevin Reilly, president of entertainment at NBC, which is set to begin airing "Revelations," a six-part apocalyptic miniseries, next month.


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http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB111197285208490584,00.html?mod=todays_free_feature

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. It's everywhere.

This is starting to seriously creep me out.

[Lisa]

2. remember when the X-Files spinoff "Millennium" came out?

It had a pretty strong dose of the apocalyptic stuff, and it didn't do so well. And also in the late 1990s, there was a show about a demon who had to track down escapees from Hell. It also got pulled pretty rapidly. Interesting what a change can happen in a few years. (After the turn of the millennium, when all the prophecies didn't pan out, either.)