Hollywood Flips Over Oscar-Nominated Christian Movie Theme Song
Enthuse Entertainment’s family-friendly drama Alone Yet Not Alone garnered a 2014 Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. The nominated title song was written by Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel and sung by best-selling author and artist Joni Eareckson Tada.
The song beat out others by Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Celine Dion and Lana Del Rey. The other nominations include Frozen‘s “Let it Go,” “Ordinary Love” by U2 from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” from Despicable Me 2 and Karen O’s “The Moon Song” from Her.
Some people in Hollywood have questioned the nomination from a Christian film that is virtually unknown. Broughton, one of the writers, is a former music branch governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as a former chair of the music branch. Deadline.com claims he used his connections to gain a nomination.
Ray Costa, who helped promote the song to Academy members, disputes the claim.
“If he could influence the Academy in that way, he should have got a lot more nominations over the past 30 years,” Costa said, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “There were 75 songs being considered, and this one was different. It was inspirational and integral to the movie.”
The title track single is available to audiences digitally through iTunes. The full soundtrack, composed by William Ross, will be available in stores this year.
No DVD release information has yet been announced. An Alone Yet Not Alone young adult book by Tracy Leininger Craven was released earlier this month by Zonderkidz.
Alone Yet Not Alone tells the story of Barbara and Regina Leininger and their journey of faith and survival during the French and Indian War in 1755. Captured by the Delaware Indians in a raid on their home and transported across 300 miles of wilderness to Ohio, the sisters are sustained only by their trust in God and their hope of escape against all odds to be reunited with their family.
In its limited theatrical release in September, Alone Yet Not Alone became the highest-grossing film on opening weekend in terms of per-screen average, reaching $13,396 per screen in its limited opening in select cities. This per-screen average surpassed the per-screen average of most other wide-release movies, including Enough Said ($9,238 per screen) and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 ($8,439 per screen), ranking Alone Yet Not Alone with one of the highest per-screen-averages for independently released faith-based films to date, according to an Enthuse Entertainment representative.
The 86th Annual Academy Awards will be held March 2 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif.
Gina Meeks contributed to this report.
