> I personally have mixed feelings about Peretti's writing-- it's definitely good story telling, but some of his theology is a bit sketchy. (Ethnicly diverse angels? What's up with that?)
>
> But I agree that either 'Darkness' or 'Oath' (I liked The Oath better than This Present Darkness) would make cool movies-- *if* and only if Hollywood can refrain from chopping it up and watering it down into some goofy Humanistic rubbish.
>
> M"in other words, the film doesn't stand a chance :-)"el

I've read and enjoyed some of Peretti's books, including The Oath, the two the "Darkness" series, and The Prophet.

Whenever someone asks me about The Oath, I describe it sort of as a "Christian Stephen King novel." It's very suspenseful and parts of it are somewhat gory. While I enjoyed reading it (twice), one does have to admit that the gospel message is very weak in it. It wouldn't require much tweaking on the part of Hollywood to distort it into "some goofy Humanistic rubbish".

The Prophet is an interesting "what if" novel, (what if God still spoke to mankind through Old Testament-style prophets instead of through His Word and the preaching of it?) but it probably wouldn't make a very good movie either.

In my experience, most novels *don't* make the transition to the big screen very well. People almost always walk away thinking, "that was no where near as good as the book." There are always exceptions, such as (IMHO) Bicentennial Man, but even then artistic license has to be taken in order to adequately tell the story in the limited time available.

By no means am I the resident expert on filmmaking, however. I'd be interested to hear what Sam has to say about this.

Gri"if you haven't read the book, read "The Positronic Man" (the novel) instead of "Bicentennial Man" (the short story)."shny