With a real-life conclave set to start in Rome on May 7, movies about the Holy See have piqued the public’s interest. Conclave, last year’s Oscar contender in which Ralph Fiennes plays a cardinal navigating a new pope’s election, saw a 283 percent viewership jump on Amazon the day after Pope Francis died. Netflix’s The Two Popes, a 2019 drama about the relationship between Francis and his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, also saw a spike, with viewership soaring 417 percent.
But one papal movie that hasn’t been getting much love lately — in fact, it’s not available to watch on any major streaming service and doesn’t appear to be available on DVD (although old VHS copies are being peddled on Amazon) — is the 1991 British satire The Pope Must Die, arguably the most controversial film about the Vatican ever made.
Directed by Peter Richardson, the film stars Robbie Coltrane as a humble village priest who accidentally gets elected Pope — “Dave the First” — only to learn that the Vatican is crawling with Mafiosa. When the new pontiff attempts to root out the corruption, the mob plots his assassination, hence the film’s title, which became a sticking point for the movie’s stateside distributor, Miramax. All three U.S. broadcast networks refused to run advertisements, as did scores of newspapers, fearing the name might be interpreted as incitement to violence. In the U.K., posters for The Pope Must Die were banned from the London Underground.
Miramax tried to soothe the backlash with the last-minute title tweak The Pope Must Diet, but that solution turned out to be too clever for its own good (and wasn’t helped by the fact that the added “t” was designed as a crucifix on the promotional materials). Ultimately, the movie ended up grossing a measly $200,000 ($469,600 in today’s dollars) in the U.S. Critical reception didn’t help, with THR‘s review calling it “erratic, clamorous and downright heavy-handed” and declaring, “This blunderheaded buffoonery is likely to be quickly dispensed with even on the art house circuit.”
Coltrane, disappointed about the hullabaloo at the time, lamented, “There’s a lot of thickos who will take it in the wrong way.” He argued that even the reigning pope back then, John Paul II, might enjoy the picture: “I think the pope seems quite a jolly fellow.”
This story appeared in the May 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
