Like the pioneering Steed family trudging across the plains to Salt
Lake City, the series of movie adaptations of the Mormon-themed
pioneer epic "The Work and the Glory" is steadily moving forward.
Taking a queue from such popular movie series as "The Lord of the
Rings," "The Matrix" and "Back to the Future," the next two chapters
of Gerald Lund's popular nine-book series about the history of the
Mormon trek will be filmed together to save money and sets and keep
the cast together, the film's producers announced Thursday.
But the next two films will be helmed by a different director,
Sterling VanWagenen, co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival and
film institute and producer of the 1985 Sundance favorite, "A Trip
to Bountiful." He also is director of the School of Film and Digital
Media at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. The films are
written by Matt Whitaker, who penned the other Mormon-themed
movie, "Saints and Soldiers."
Scott Swofford, who is producing the next two sequels of "The
Work and the Glory," said he picked a different director for those
films (Russ Holt wrote and directed the first film) because of the
changing nature of the story.
"The challenges of the characters get very complex now," Swofford
said. The books are also more violent, though the filmmakers are
expected to deliver a film with a PG-13 or lower rating. The first
movie was rated PG.
Production, which will include 55 days of shooting in Tennessee,
upstate New York and Utah, begins in two weeks for another pre-
Thanksgiving opening later this year. The third film will be
released next year.
The first film in the series, "Pillar of Light," debuted Nov. 24
and has earned $3.2 million at the box office, far less than the
$7.4 million spent to make it - not including $900,000 for
marketing.
But the film's executive producer, auto dealer and Utah Jazz
owner Larry Miller, said he expects to at least break even with the
movie's upcoming video release on Mother's Day, which is part of the
decision to move forward with the next two sequels.
"The early orders on the DVD will exceed any other LDS film," he
said.
The series tells the tale of Benjamin and Mary Ann Steed (Sam
Hennings and "Desperate Housewives' " Brenda Strong, respectively)
and their sons Joshua and Nathan as they journey from their
homestead in New York in 1830 to the Salt Lake Valley.
All of the cast is returning, along with new characters, and all
the actors have been hired except for Utah's first governor and
former Mormon prophet Brigham Young, who is introduced in the second
movie.
"We have just had the darndest time," VanWagenen said about
finding the right actor. "Maybe the problem is me because I haven't
been satisfied yet."
Producing the "Work and the Glory" series has been more a labor
of love than a business project for Miller, who dabbled in the film
industry when he financed "Brigham City."
But while he says it's his money on the line - each of the next
two films will cost about the same as the first - he doesn't expect
to be too involved.
"It's a business I don't understand too well, so I feel I have to
trust the people more who know," he said. "It's like I never told
Jerry Sloan how to coach and I never told him who to put in the
game, and I'm not going to tell them [the director and producer]
what to do."