Even though he’s currently deep into production on “Machine Gun Preacher” with Gerard Butler, Marc Forster is eyeing another preacher story with a bit of a different twist.
Based on an episode of “This American Life,” “Heretics” tells the story of “Carlton Pearson, who was a rising star among evangelicals until he was ostracized by his own church and declared a heretic after he started preaching that there is no Hell.” You can listen to the episode here and we have the full summary from the show’s website below:
Carlton Pearson’s church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the reverend. He didn’t have an affair. He didn’t embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse: He stopped believing in Hell.Reporter Russell Cobb takes us through the remarkable and meteoric rise of Carlton Pearson from a young man to a Pentecostal Bishop: from the moment he first cast the devil out of his 17-year-old girlfriend, to the days when he had a close, personal relationship with Oral Roberts and had appearances on TV and at the White House. Just as Reverend Pearson’s career peaked, with more than 5,000 members of his congregation coming every week, he started to think about Hell, wondering if a loving God would really condemn most of the human race to burn and writhe in the fire of Hell for eternity.
Once he starts preaching his own revelation, Carlton Pearson’s church falls apart. After all, when there’s no Hell (as the logic goes), you don’t really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it. What follows are the swift departures of his pastors, and an exodus from his congregation—which quickly dwindled to a few hundred people. Donations drop off too, but just as things start looking bleakest, new kinds of people, curious about his change in beliefs, start showing up on Sunday mornings.
If Forster comes aboard, obviously the film wouldn’t get in front of cameras until he has wrapped up “Machine Gun Preacher.” But he probably won’t make a decision until he gets a chance to look at the script that’s being written by Marcus Hinchey who penned the still unreleased “All Good Things” directed by Andrew Jarecki and starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst. Forster is also attached to an adapation of Robert Ludlum’s “The Chancellor Manuscript” which is being developed as a vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio. Which one of these ends up going first (or, if he’ll jump to something else entirely) remains to be seen.
