Perhaps in response to the hundreds of millions of people around the world demanding to know why God won’t answer their prayers, Lionsgate wants to deliver the next best thing: a false idol. Variety reports that the studio is in final negotiations for Octavia Spencer to impersonate the Lord Almighty in their upcoming film adaptation of bestselling book The Shack.
Oscar-winning actress Spencer, commonly known as the 21st century’s walking, talking Ba’al, would play the holiest of heavenly hosts in the story about a man whose youngest daughter is kidnapped during a family vacation. Four years later, after evidence left in an abandoned shack leads him to believe his daughter was murdered, he receives a note inviting him to return to the shack. We haven’t read the book, but we’re guessing from there God and the man join forces to enact bloody revenge on the killer, presumably with God totally whaling on a bar full of thugs at some point. So like John Wick, but with God as John Wick, we’re thinking.
The novel, written by William P. Young, was acquired by Lionsgate in 2013. It has sold more than 18 million copies worldwide, in 39 languages. Plus, 10 million of the copies were sold in the U.S. alone, meaning America is very ready to sit down in a theater, watch the lights dim, and then suddenly remember that most of this story is just a super-pedantic conversation about religion. At which point they’ll get up and sneak into the theater next door, where hopefully by that time John Wick 2 will be playing.