A couple of women squealed in excitment. The line stretched 200 long at 7 p.m. Thursday and was growing fast, with cameras everywhere, as evangelical superstar Joel Osteen stepped into LoDo’s Tattered Cover Book Store to sign copies of his latest New York Times No.1 bestseller, “Every Day A Friday.”
Trim and tailored — his manners and hair perfect — Osteen demonstrated just how pleasant and unflappable the Houston-based pastor of America’s largest church is when asked about his business connection to a Mexican druglord through a hot movie script.
“We knew nothing about all that,” Osteen said wide-eyed and smiling.
The screenplay in question, “Mary, Mother of Christ,” is the work of screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald, who co-wrote the screenplay for Mel Gibson’s 2004 blockbuster “Passion of the Christ.”
This story of Mary’s life struck Osteen as beautiful and a great vehicle with which to venture into filmmaking as an executive producer, said Donald Iloff, chief strategist for Joel Osteen Ministries.
“Mary is an important figure in Christianity,” Osteen told the Post. “There have been lots of movies about Jesus. We’re about elevating people — about elevating women.”
Yet the script had a secret life of its own.
Admitted drug trafficker Jorge Vazquez Sanchez pleaded guilty in mid-May to money laundering and
Madrigal has since sued Vazquez to void Vazquez’s earlier sale of the script to a Hollywood production company, Proud Mary Entertainment (now known as Aloe Entertainment), for more than $900,000 plus 10 percent of the movie’s profits. The movie was set to be filmed later this year, with Osteen on board.
Madrigal, through his company Macri Inc., had acquired the script from Fitzgerald after Fitzgerald defaulted on a $340,000 business loan, the Express-News reported.
Vazquez admitted to authorities that he and a former business partner of Madrigal’s kidnapped Madrigal’s brother in Mexico to force Madrigal to sign over his rights to the screenplay.
“We didn’t know about any of this. The lady who owned the script when we got involved didn’t know about it,” Osteen said.
In a further mind-boggling complication, Vazquez, as part of his plea deal, signed over his 10 percent of the profits to the U.S. government, the Express-News reported. The agreement has him serving seven years in prison instead of the maximum 40.
“I’d hate to see the movie held up because of all that,” Osteen said. “It’s out of my control. I just believe it will all work out.”
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Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
