The Rev Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church died of pneumonia
Monday at a cult-owned Korean hospital near his home northwest of Seoul. He was 92. Hollywood will recall Moon’s ill-fated Hollywood motion picture Inchon, which commemorated Moon’s version of the Korean War’s 1950 Battle Of Inchon and starred Laurence Olivier as Gen Douglas MacArthur. The 1982 critically panned fiasco was mostly financed by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon — though he denied it at the time but received screen credit as the ”Special Advisor on Korean Matters”. It did so poorly at the box office that it posted the largest financial loss of that year and was one of the biggest bombs of the 1980s. Robert Standard, associate producer of Inchon, was a member of the Unification Church of the United States. Moon had considered making films about the lives of Jesus or Elvis Presley. But in 1978, so the story goes, psychic Jeanne Dixon communicated with MacArthur’s spirit who endorsed Inchon as the film subject. She also reportedly chose James Bond film director Terence Young (Dr. No, Thunderball, From Russia with Love) as Inchon’s helmer. Not the best way to put together a winning formula for a film.


THe movie was so long in post-production that one of its stars, David Janssen, died and was edited out.
I saw it in a totally empty theater back when it premiered. Moonies were outside, trying to drum up business. No luck. The script was laughable, and you can’t believe how weird Olivier looked in his MacArthur make-up, but the battle scenes were pretty immense, considering the money involved.
I saw it and liked it the movie was good but too long. There was no real need to make it because Gregory Peck already played “MacArthur” in the bio-pic and that showed you everything you’d want to know about MacArthur.
“But in 1978, so the story goes, psychic Jeanne Dixon communicated with MacArthur’s spirit who endorsed Inchon as the film subject. She also reportedly chose James Bond film director Terence Young (Dr. No, Thunderball, From Russia with Love) as Inchon’s helmer. Not the best way to put together a winning formula for a film.”
I dunno – this seems no less crazy than how some films come together. And the fact that they even bothered to try and psychically communicate with the dead person their film focused on shows that they cared a lot more about what they were putting on screen that any number of other historically-based movies!
People will view his actions as weird, if they are outside Hollywood. Not all that much different from what studios do every day.
My father was 1st AD on this. Crazy shoot. Character would have one line in the script on a Friday night, then the other characters would react in one way to it in the reversals. Then the script would change (after the fact) on Saturday and they had to redo all the reaction shots Sunday. Everyone on set was like come on guys — get your basic story editing together. Haha.
I hate to admit it but I actually saw that movie in the theaters when it came out. And yes, it was THAT bad. The low point of Laurence Oliviers film career!
No, the Olivier low point was actually the remake of The Jazz Singer starring Neil Diamond… Or close to it.
You must have missed “The Betsy”. Oy, vay as Larry would have said in The Jazz Singer.
I have no idea what this movie is, but the guy in the poster looks insanely like Will Arnett.
Mr. FU sez,
Jeanne Dixon communicating with the dead to pick out the topic and director? Honestly, how much different is that from when Ovitz ran Hollywood, or any film heads jumping at the bit to work with a ‘star.’
Moon had the money and like most, money buys talent. But, talent does not garauntee success (see any flops throughout history).
As my favorite Hollywood script writer once said ‘Nobody in this town knows ANYTHING.’
Bigger bomb than John Carter? No. And Inchon was more watchable.
Huh? John Carter made $282 million worldwide. Inchon made $5 million. Inchon is one of the top 20 biggest money-losers in box office history, and John Carter doesn’t even make the Top 100 list. You’re really not good at math.
John Carter was well-written, well-filmed, and has very good special effects. It was hurt by over-spending, bad marketing, and a poor lead actor (Kitsch didn’t even try for a Southern accent, let alone a Virginia accent; I wish they had hired Josh Holloway). John Carter is in no way like Inchon.
Why are we still calling this a cult? Once the founder is dead, it’s a religion. C’mon people, this is apologetics 101.