Talk about your hot button issues. America remains caught up in the ongoing debate about whether Intelligent Design – or Christianity’s answer to evolution – should be taught in school.
Now Paramount is making a movie of a landmark decision in the argument, which happened last year in a Philadelphia courtroom. A judge denied a school board the right to force teachers to include intelligent design on the curriculum.
Spotting a potential movie, producer Linda Obst was quick to dispatch a researcher with a notebook and now The Pianist’s Ronald Harwood will write the script.
"It has turned out to be the test case for the teaching of evolution in high school curriculums across the country, and it speaks directly to the key schism between the red and blue states," Obst told Variety.
And there’s precedent. 1960’s **Inherit The Wind **was based on a 1925 trial that saw a teacher charged with “illegally” promoting evolution. "Our aspiration is to make a film that powerful," Harwood added. "We have a highly emotional case that divided a town right down the middle, and a judge whose summary was spectacular."
We can hear the protests now.