Bill Maher Says No Studio Would Let Him Make 'Religulous' Today: 'That World Is Gone'
01/05/2024 01:28
Bill Maher is confident he made his 2008 documentary “Religulous” right before it became impossible to do.
“It wouldn’t have happened two years later, no movie studio would have touched it,” Maher said on Dana White’s Club Random podcast. “I’ve always been thankful to Lionsgate at that moment being very independent and doing movies like that, but that world is gone.”
White then jumped in and commented on the specific places Maher went while shooting the film — places the “Real Time” host admitted he wouldn’t want to go back to now.
“I wouldn’t want to do that again,” Maher said. “I mean, Jerusalem was under attack from Iran the other day. It’s like we’re back to the Crusades, except the part of the Christians are being played by Persians.”
“Religulous” found Maher crisscrossing the globe and playing devil’s advocate toward every religion — from Christianity, to Judaism, to Islam and even Scientology. He put believers of each religion under a microscope while questioning them about all aspects of their chosen faith.
“Religion is scary and dangerous,” White added on Sunday’s episode.
“That’s exactly right,” Maher said. “It doesn’t take much more than a Catholic upbringing to make you really hate religion.”
Back in 2008, TheWrap founder and Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman had this to say about “Religulous” after seeing an early screening of the documentary:
“In many scenes, Maher does all the talking, laying out his own doubts while allowing the interviewee only a few words – or a shrug – in response … but Maher must be given credit for attempting a courageous statement of militant secularism in a world where religion evokes knee-jerk support. He clearly believes that faith – or belief in God, or truth, or whatever you call it – is behind many of the ills in today's world, that blindly following religion is leading the world toward Apocalypse, a manmade one.”
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