Year in Review: Jesus stars in popular movie
While the makers of the wildly popular Veggie Tales video
series released their first full-length made-for-theater movie in 2002, the
"Jesus film" appeared to retain its spot as the number one Christian flick
of all time. The film, which is the most translated cinema production in history,
exceeded five billion in viewership during 2002. According to estimates by
the Jesus Film Project, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International,
the film has been viewed in every country of the world, and as of July 1 had
been seen by at least 5,164,836,643 people. To date the film has been released
in 743 languages and shown in 236 countries, territories, and protectorates.
That's not to take anything away from Jonah - a VeggieTales Movie, the big
screen offering released in October by Big Idea Productions. Bob the Tomato,
Larry the Cucumber, Archibald Asparagus, and the rest of the vegetable gang
did a knockout job presenting truths of God's Word to a larger cinema audience.
Producer Paul Vischer explained the Jonah story line, "For Big Idea's very
first feature film, we picked one of the best known Bible stories, about a
guy who knew what God wanted him to do, did the exact opposite, and ended
up in one of the stickiest situations ever - the belly of a whale." While
Big Idea's story writers kept the core Bible account intact, they filled in
the blanks with 90 minutes of what VeggieTales is famous for: Judeo-Christian
truths wrapped in good clean fun. Michael W. Smith did pretty well for himself
this year, too, cleaning up at the 2002 Dove Awards. "Smitty" was named Artist
of the Year and the group MercyMe won Song of the Year honors for "I Can Only
Imagine" at the 33rd annual Dove Awards held April 25 at Nashville's Grand
Ole Opry House. In addition to the evening's major award, Smith took five
more Dove statuettes, including one for Inspirational Song for "Above All"
and another for Praise and Worship Album for Worship. That brought his career
total to 33 Dove Awards.