Jesus on the small screen

Live musicals have all but flopped on the major networks in recent years, drawing less than half the audience of, say, a live football game. But NBC isn’t giving up and on Easter Sunday plans to air a live version of Jesus Christ Superstar starring John Legend as Jesus, Sara Bareilles as Mary Magdalene, and Alice Cooper as Herod.

NBC produced the first and most-watched live TV musical of the past decade, 2013’s The Sound of Music Live! It drew 18.6 million viewers (an audience that does rival NBC’s Sunday Night Football’s), but the musicals that came after went downhill. The next best showing came from Grease: Live on Fox in 2016, with 12.2 million viewers.

Superstar tells the story of the final week of Jesus’ life, loosely following the Gospel of John, and is timed to air on Palm Sunday. Two years ago, Tyler Perry produced a live musical for Fox called The Passion that used popular music to illustrate Jesus’ death and resurrection and concluded with an invitation to faith by Perry himself. It garnered 6.6 million viewers.

Superstar has generated controversy since its release as a rock opera album in 1970. It strips all mention of Jesus’ divinity and peppers the story with modern references that some see as irreverent. When Universal released a 25th anniversary DVD in 1998, WORLD Magazine reviewer Chris Stamper called it a “tour-de-junque of some great cultural weeds of the last 25 years.”

But not every Christian sees it as fruitless. WORLD Magazine senior writer Andrée Seu Peterson wrote, “It was that album that started me thinking about Jesus as a real human man and not a haloed hologram.”

Perhaps the April 1 program can do the same for some, especially if Christians take the opportunity to watch with their neighbors and start discussions about the Jesus they know.

How low can they go?

Earlier this month, The Weinstein Company seemed ready to head into the future with new ownership, but this week it landed in bankruptcy court. A group of investors led by Maria Contreras-Sweet, who promised to shape the movie studio into a female-led company, walked away from the deal saying the business had $50 million more in debt than previously disclosed. The Weinstein Company disputed that claim and said Contreras-Sweet and her cohort acted in bad faith.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a stalking horse bidder—another investor who wants to buy the company at auction. The bankruptcy filing could allow the bidder, Dallas-based Lantern Capital Partners, to buy the company’s assets without having to assume the entirety of its debt. That’s bad news for The Weinstein Company’s unsecured creditors and potentially for any women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault and hoped for some sort of restitution. The bankruptcy at least ensures a more transparent process and will require the approval of a federal judge.

Meanwhile, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the state’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, to investigate the Manhattan prosecutor’s handling of a 2015 sexual assault claim against Weinstein. New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. declined to press charges, citing a lack of evidence, when a model accused Weinstein of groping her breast. —L.L.

Legal maneuvers

Here’s the latest on comedian Bill Cosby’s upcoming retrial in the alleged drugging and molestation of Andrea Constand in 2004:

After Judge Steven O’Neill said last week he would allow up to five additional accusers to testify about the comedian’s behavior, Cosby’s lawyers asked for a three-month delay to prepare for their testimonies. They argued they needed more time to investigate the women’s allegations and work up a defense. O’Neill denied the request but moved the start of jury selection to April 2 from March 29.

Cosby’s lawyers have asked the judge to ban T-shirts, buttons, and props with anti–sexual assault slogans from the courtroom during the trial. Some accusers had such items, including bouquets of pink gladioli, at Cosby’s first trial, and lawyers worry they could prejudice the jury

Lawyers then asked Thursday for O’Neill to recuse himself entirely from the trial because of his wife’s work as an advocate for sexual assault victims. Deborah O’Neill coordinates the University of Pennsylvania sexual trauma outreach team and wrote her dissertation on acquaintance rape. —L.L.

Artistic outreach

South Korea said this week it will send 160 artists, including 10 or more pop stars, to North Korea. The musicians will perform concerts in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, from March 31 to April 3. The plans further illustrate the unprecedented thaw in relations between the two countries, but things could still get icy since the sides haven’t agreed which songs the singers will perform. North Korea keeps a stranglehold on public speech within its borders, blocking almost all outside information, including arts and entertainment. —L.L.