Writer Mike Rich on The Nativity

There's a little bit from Mike Rich and his script for The Nativity at Variety. Bits of this have been mentioned elsewhere but new, at least to me, were these excerpts:

"I think that this story is a natural bookend to The Passion," said Rich, whose credits include "Finding Forrester," "Radio" and "The Rookie." "Everyone knows the basic outline, but it's also such a timeless story of faith and hope."....

...The inspiration for penning a script came to Rich in late 2004 when he read simultaneous cover stories about the Nativity in Time and Newsweek. "It seemed to me that although this was a challenging story, it was also really compelling," he added.

The article also talks about Rich's desire to flesh out "key characters such as King Herod; John the Baptist's parents, Zachariah and Elizabeth; the shepherds who were witness to Jesus' birth; and the arrival of the three kings from the Orient."

Still not sure what to make of the information coming out regarding this film. I'm encouraged by buzz about Hardwicke, but the mention of "three kings from the Orient" doesn't sit with me particularly well. On another notes the article also informs us that "the script covers the two-year period of Mary and Joseph's life, culminating in their leaving Nazareth and journeying 100 miles to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus". Some scholars would say that only Luke shows Mary and Joseph making this journey, Matthew seems to imply that they lived in Bethlehem at the start of the story, only moving to Nazareth after Herod had died.

Variety also talks about the attempts to get Catherine Hardwicke to direct, which I discussed yesterday

There's also a 2004 interview with Rich at the Heartland Film Festival, where he names one of my favourite films, Field of Dreams, and The Quiet Man as films that inspired him.

UPDATE
There's an August 2006 interview with Mike Rich which I discuss here