Former Senator Rick Santorum announced today that he is producing a remake of Brokeback Mountain in which the central characters are not gay.
In an interview on Fox News this morning, the conservative Catholic said his film company has purchased a "pro-family, pro-Christian" rewrite of the script and are looking to start production in April of next year.
Santorum has been CEO of faith-based Echolight Studios since June of this year. The company's first production, The Christmas Candle, was a critical and box office failure, but the former Pennsylvania senator and presidential candidate is more hopeful for the company's next project.
"This is gonna be a blockbuster," he told Fox and Friends. "I accidentally saw the original Brokeback Mountain in theaters because I heard it was a good cowboy story. And you know what? I kinda liked it. If it weren't for all that gay stuff, it would have been a great movie.
"After the failure of our first film, we realized that rather than creating movies from scratch, we should take successful moves and remove the sin. In our version when the Jake Gyllenhaal character is a woman who tempts her cowboy partner into straying from his wife.
"The two have an passionate love affair. But after some intensive Bible study the man decides to remove the temptation from his life. So he has his mistress locked up in a mental institution for hysteria and returns to his family. It's a great Christian love story."
Mounting Mogul
Santorum's remake -- tentatively entitled Temptation Mountain -- is slated for a summer 2015 release, and won't be the last major motion picture remade for Christian audiences.
Echolight is also in the early stages of producing straight versions of Milk, Dog Day Afternoon, Boys Don't Cry, I Love You Philip Morris and the French sensation Blue is the Warmest Color.
"We're also pitching television," Santorum explained. "Why can't we have a Catholic Eye for the Straight Guy? Or a primetime drama called The S Word? Or a show about high-school glee clubs without the weird little queer?"
Christian groups celebrated Santorum's announcement, saying that it will introduce choice into the marketplace. However, Annie Proulx, author of the short story on which the original Brokeback Mountain was based, is unimpressed with his plans.
"Rick Santorum can't erase the gay thoughts in his head, so he's going to erase them in my movie instead," she says.
