Cynthia Erivo to Play the Lead in Jesus Christ Superstar Production

Entertainment

Hollywood is poking the bear again, but what’s most interesting about their latest passive-aggressive tantrum is what they’re not doing. It was just announced that Wicked star Cynthia Erivo will play the title role in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which will be performed at the Hollywood Bowl from August 1-3, 2025. Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera with music from Andrew Lloyd Weber and lyricist Tim Rice that tells the story of Jesus’ final days before the Crucifixion, mostly through the eyes of Judas Iscariot. It has almost certainly not escaped your notice that Cynthia Erivo is a gay black woman, and Jesus… wasn’t. While no other casting announcements have been made, it appears this production is an adaptation of an all-female recording of Jesus Christ Superstar called “She is Risen,” produced by and starring Morgan James; Erivo was also part of that recording, in which she played Mary Magdalene. No doubt Erivo’s current popularity due to her Oscar nomination for Wicked had a role in her getting the role.

As you can imagine, this is being perceived as yet another attack on Christians by an industry that makes no secret of how much it despises them. It’s hard to believe the producers of this Jesus Christ Superstar production didn’t know exactly what they were doing when they cast Cynthia Erivo, just as I’m sure Morgan James knew what she was doing when she made “She is Risen.” At least James was probably trying to make some feminist point with her recording; it’s stupid and annoying, but about her and women as opposed to a direct attack on Christians. This is absolutely a shot at a religion Hollywood doesn’t like, and that’s a fair judgment because the entertainment industry is hyper-sensitive about offending anyone: they put warning labels on Disney movies and lectures in front of Gone With the Wind; they remove South Park episodes from existence; they insist that minority characters are only played by people of that exact demographic, which cost Scarlett Johansson a role and sank the entire movie; they see offensive messages in video games where nobody else does and get them altered. When people that dogged about causing offense do something this blatant, it’s on purpose. In addition to taking another swipe at Christians, I believe this is also in response to President Trump’s recent comments about the Kennedy Center, the board of which he just took over:

But the funny part about what is the Hollywood equivalent of blowing a raspberry is how limited it is. Okay, they’re putting on a stage play at one of the country’s most prestigious venues – but they’re not making a movie. This is a three-night production that only left-wing Hollywood elites will see, not a major film with a wide release, which is what I first assumed it was. The reason for that is obvious: nobody would see it. And I don’t just mean devout Christians, numerous as they are; this kind of thing turns off all normal people. I doubt many Jewish people, Muslims, or people of any faith would be lining up to check this out – or, for that matter, people who aren’t religious but are sick of hearing more whining and preaching from a bunch of obnoxious millionaires. It would have been humiliating to roll out this sneering version of Jesus Christ Superstar and see it do about 12% of the business of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ; maybe it would even get soundly thrashed by a new Angel Studios movie, just to add insult to injury. And that tells me that, deep down, Hollywood knows the country is not with them, and more importantly, they can’t afford to pretend otherwise anymore. As a limited-run stage show in bluer-than-blueberries Los Angeles, it’ll probably do fine, but distributed across the country, it would crash and burn. This is the epitome of staying in one’s lane, and that’s more entertaining than I imagine this play would be.

Let us know what you think of Hollywood’s new production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the comments!

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