Cynthia Erivo to Play Jesus in 'Jesus Christ Superstar'

Will Ferrell Lol GIF
 
The ultimate disrespect. What a joke…

Unbelievable how Hollywood goes out of their way to not offend any religion except Christendom, where they go all in with the insults.
 
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She's made people a lot of money being a lead in Wicked so I expect that she'll be top billing in as many musicals as possible.

I honestly don't think the target demographic would be anything but happy at this announcement.
 
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There's been tons of productions of the show over the years including all female and all black casts. It's a nothing burger but I'm sure outrage farmers will have fun with it.
Has there ever been an all white cast of Hamilton? (Outside of a school production, perhaps)

Curious how well that would be received.

But stage plays, in general, are where I give the greatest leeway for "interpretive license".
 
Is this just a one-off show or are they pro-shooting this for a theater release? I'm not sure what the Hollywood Bowl is. A one-off show is a who-gives-a-fuck. A pro-shot version of Jesus Christ Superstar would be strange, that wouldn't make any money even if it was casted "perfectly". Better pick a more popular musical. Unless they are doing this intentionally to be controversial, which would be very 1992 of them.

Edit: This is just for 3 shows, this is "who-gives-a-shit" territory. She was probably the best and most popular musical theater actress they could land for this, especially because she will give it buzz for Wicked.
 
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Ehh the show is very old now... lots of different race guys have played the part. Its a nothing thing to get mad over.
 
Except this is NOT a guy.

but who cares really? are they preaching that jesus was a woman ? like i said its an old show that no one really cares about anymore.. in fact it needs something crazy to keep it going. so again I say good luck to them.

also to be clear this is not a devote religious show. Christians have been hating it since it started.

🤷‍♂️
 
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I mean it's a single performance of a play, it's not that big of a deal. Historically plays are a bit all over the place on these things.

It's also only loosley based on biblical stories in the first place. (And she's not the first woman to play Jesus in this play)
 
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So who will be Judas and Mary Magdalene?
 
Is this just a one-off show or are they pro-shooting this for a theater release? I'm not sure what the Hollywood Bowl is. A one-off show is a who-gives-a-fuck. A pro-shot version of Jesus Christ Superstar would be strange, that wouldn't make any money even if it was casted "perfectly". Better pick a more popular musical. Unless they are doing this intentionally to be controversial, which would be very 1992 of them.

Edit: This is just for 3 shows, this is "who-gives-a-shit" territory. She was probably the best and most popular musical theater actress they could land for this, especially because she will give it buzz for Wicked.
It does seem a strange choice, she must be fielding all sorts of lucrative offers at the moment given the popularity of Wicked.

I wonder if it's literally that she's got passion (of the Christ) for doing some onstage theatre, there's a window in her schedule, it represents a smaller time commitment than another movie. (I don't know how much rehearsal time it might need but Google thinks about a month) and this will be a bit of a spectacle that'll give her reason to be spoken about away from Wicked which has a sequel releasing a couple of months later.

Limited run, big star, novelty of a stage play at the Bowl.

Take into account that theatre tickets are quite expensive, if they can get people to pay $200 a seat at the 17500 capacity Bowl, (and if they allocate seating/sections somehow they'll be able to charge more for the good seats) then they'll bring in $10.5M if they sell out.

Google thinks Erivo got a million for Wicked. She could easily walk away with more for a month's work here.

Seems like a pretty good idea in that context.
 
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