What a bunch of bull. Suppose for a second that Americans had happily reconciled religion and evolution a hundred years ago. Would that mean ignorant American

What a bunch of bull. Suppose for a second that Americans had happily reconciled religion and evolution a hundred years ago. Would that mean ignorant American yokels would line up to see a movie about a fairly boring (personally, anyway, by movie protagonist standards) nineteenth century naturalist? Jennifer Connelly or no, blaming creationists for the commercial unviability of a movie about Charles Darwin is like saying, "My discount liquor store would have been a big success if Google hadn't closed its local campus. Now that the Googlers are gone, who's going to buy these bottles of King Cobra and Mad Dog 20/20?" It just doesn't make sense. If anything, the controversy would have helped the film, since it would polarize communities and make non-creationists feel like maybe they should see it just to make it clear what side they're on. In the end, you can't blame lack of broad appeal on politics. Look at Brokeback Mountain versus the zillion previous gay art-house romances that went nowhere. Did Brokeback Mountain break out because American evangelicals got soft on gays for a moment? No, it broke out because it had big names (Heath Ledger, Ang Lee, Maggie Gyllenhaal's brother), a plot, accessible dialog, and a bunch of familiar elements (cowboys, forbidden love) that made it easy for audiences to engage with the characters.