Word: penland
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Pollock, chairman of MCA's motion picture group: "The best thing that can be done for The Last Temptation of Christ at this time is to make it available to the American people and allow them to draw their own conclusions, based on fact not fallacy." But Tim Penland, a born-again marketing expert once hired by Universal to placate conservative critics and now a critic himself, believes the six-week jump will unleash more Fundamentalist anger. "It's the most serious mistake a studio has made in decades," he says...
Universal Pictures had anticipated controversy. Paramount, originally set to produce the movie in 1983, backed out just weeks before the cameras were to roll. To head off a storm, Universal took the unusual step last January of hiring Penland to calm down the religious right. But Penland resigned in June, charging that Universal had reneged on a promise to let conservative religious leaders see the film and comment on it well in advance of its release...
Scorsese, the director of Taxi Driver and The Color of Money, has tried for years to make a film of The Last Temptation. Paramount had planned to produce it in 1983 but backed away, fearing pressure from Fundamentalists. When Universal undertook the project, it hired born-again Marketers Tim Penland and the Rev. Larry Poland to help allay concern about the film among their fellow conservative Christians. The pair marked 80 out of 120 script pages where they thought dialogue or action would be unacceptable, then resigned, they say, after concluding that Universal would not respond to their objections...