There has been a lot of confusion on the relationship between MAGA evangelical Eric Metaxas and the film Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin. Warren Throckmorton scored an interview with the film’s director, Todd Kormanicki. Here is a taste of Throckmorton’s Substack post based on the interview:
According to Komarnicki, the initiative to create a feature film about Dietrich Bonhoeffer goes back to 2010, the year Metaxas’ biography of Bonhoeffer was published. The lead funding sources, Emmanuel and Camille Kampouris, knew Metaxas, read his book and attempted to commission a screenplay based on that book. Emmanuel and Camille are a married couple not involved in the movie business but became inspired to see a movie made about Bonhoeffer.
After six years, their efforts to get the movie made stalled, and Komarnicki was hired to write a new and original script. Todd’s script was not based on Metaxas book (he’s only read excerpts of it), but rather on Komarnicki’s reading of Bonhoeffer’s own works.
As for Metaxas, he was involved tangentially because of his friendship with the Kampourises. However, after the 2020 election, his association became “unsustainable” according to Komarnicki. He said Metaxas’ embrace of the “Stop the Steal” movement and his support for the January 6 insurrection influenced those working on the film to clearly distance Metaxas from the project.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin was shot beginning in 2022 and completed in October, 2023. According to Komarnicki, Metaxas was never “on set, in an edit room, or anywhere close to the movie being made.”
Even though the film took a different direction under Komarnicki, Metaxas has been a visible part of the film’s marketing plan as stewarded by Angel Studios. Angel Studios made a deal with the financiers to distribute and promote the film. Once Angel Studios began advertising Bonhoeffer, Metaxas aggressively promoted it on social media. Beginning as early as June 2024, Angel Studios provided Metaxas with a promotional code to use on social media so that referrals he generated could be tracked (angel.com/eric).
I asked director Komarnicki if Metaxas was getting paid for his referrals to Angel Studios’ website. Although he told me that Angel Studios denied it, I am not so sure. For some reason, the code in the address line of Angel’s website tracks Metaxas’ name whenever anyone uses the address angel.com/eric. If he is not getting some payment or compensation, then why does he have his own trackable source code in the promotion of the film?Â
Read the rest here.