Lion of Judah-Another CGI Bible Film

2007's animated version of The Ten Commandments may have been something of a first, but it was only a matter of time before computer animated Bible films were popping up all over the place. FilmChat has news of another - the first CGI film to be made in South Africa in fact - Lion of Judah.

In comparison to The Ten Commandments it's taken on a somewhat easier task. That film was widely criticised for what was perceived to be substandard CGI. It's far more difficult to animate humans well with CGI than it is to animate animals (for example it wasn't until The Incredibles that Pixar used animated humans as the lead characters). So it's a wise move by the makers of Lion of Judah to focus on a story about a group of farm animals and the titular lion instead.

Unusually, that's just about as much information about the film's plot as there is on its official website. There may be a trailer, a guide to the characters, screensavers to download and a few other bits and pieces, but there's no mention of the fact that this is a film about the Easter story. At least, that's what the IMDb says. Indeed even articles in Variety and Cartoon Brew seem to skirt the issue.It looks like the film is trying to promote itself purely as a goofy animated movie with loveable animal characters, citing the odd known actor (Ernest Borgnine, Michael Madsen) along the way to appeal to the adults. I can see why that makes good marketing, although it may be that the publicists reveal more about the film's plot as we near the release date.

The one point that will interest Jesus film fans though will be the news that Bruce Marchiano of the Visual Bible's Matthew and Acts will be reprising the role of Jesus. Marchiano is, of course, still trying to raise funding to make his own word for word version of the Gospel of John. The Visual Bible films were filmed in South Africa by the South African director Regardt van den Bergh so I can't help wondering if there is a connection there somewhere.