The 21-hour Bible Experience, based on today's New International Version of the Bible, is brought to life by a collection of distinguished acts such as Denzel Washington as Solomon, Samuel L. Jackson in the role of God, Angela Bassett as Esther, Blair Underwood as Jesus, Bishop T. D. Jakes as the Holy Spirit amongst a stellar list of over 250 celebrities, musicians, politicians, and clergy.
Wal-Mart reports that the product has been near top spot for audio books on its website for weeks. It has had sales of 80,000 in just over a month. The next best-selling audio Bible in the US, also by Zondervan, clears barely 60,000 a year.
In addition, Inspired by: The Bible Experience features movie-quality sound effects and background music.
"The personalities, sound effects and original musical score make this the freshest, most compelling and thoroughly modern way to learn and understand the Bible," said Paul Caminiti, vice president of Zondervan, the largest publisher of Bibles, the leading Christian communications company in the world and distributor of Inspired by "The Bible Experience".
The production has the whole New Testament and part of the Old, an original score recorded by the Prague Symphony Orchestra and is on CDs and MP3 format. During the first quarter of the year, all scriptures will be available as ring tones.
"We're living in the sight and sound generation, we had to utilise today's technology," said executive producer Ron Belk.
Its success has led the production company to start on a more ambitious Old Testament for next year. Musical producer Lou Brown said more African-American actors had joined the big names. "The buzz spread through the black community in Hollywood like wildfire," he said.
