HUBBARD-BASED FILM BOMBS

Battlefield Earth, a major motion picture based on the science-fiction novel of the same name by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, was pummeled with scathing reviews shortly after its release in May and staggered at the box office. Film critic Roger Ebert said the movie was “like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It’s not merely bad; it’s unpleasant in a hostile way.”

The $80 million film was spearheaded by actor John Travolta, who used his influence in Hollywood to get the movie made. “I can get things done that a studio might not normally do,” Travolta told the New York Daily News.

Travolta has long professed Scientology and has reached its highest rank: “Operating Thetan.” People of such rank purportedly can control “matter, energy, space, time, form and life,” but apparently not film reviews.

Initial fears that the film would be a recruiting tool for the Church of Scientology proved exaggerated. The movie contains traces of Scientology beliefs, but its lackluster showing mitigated even that small opportunity for influence.

—MKG

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