From the Award-Winning Story Based on the 2019 film and book by Robert Orlando
A SEVEN-PART
TELEVISION SERIES
"The Untold Story of the 20th Century"
[ NEXUS MEDIA ]
Nexus Media, Princeton, New Jersey
Phone number: (917) 817-1514
Imagine a modern biblical story about the greatest rulers in a world of Divided Kingdoms, joined together to unite and confront an evil power responsible for the death of 100 million. The Divine Plan tells the story of two bold shepherds who would achieve one of the most significant victories ever for the kingdom of faith, to deliver a blow to the forces of evil that would free one billion slaves without violence.
BACKGROUND
The Divine Plan series, building upon the successful book/film, tells the transformative stories of two incredibly well-known (but seldom understood) heroes showing:
How an American Protestant and a Polish Catholic provided each other with missing pieces of the puzzle revealing God’s Plan and their destiny.
The power of “two or more gathering in thy name” to achieve something they couldn’t alone. Their modern miracle: freeing one billion enslaved people without firing a single shot and changing the whole world.
How to bear your unique Cross, typically the source of struggle and sacrifice but also great power. As The Lord of The Rings series shows, heroes who harness the power of their challenges defeat the lies and plans of the evil one.
This series is like the epic tales in the Bible, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Paul, except that it occurs in our own time, spanning the 1920s through the 1980s. This series offers a powerful Theo-drama, several stories showing how history = His Story and the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
As Father John Riccardo, a student of John Paul, explains: “In the high stakes drama all around us we have each been given a part to play, one that bears our name and no one else’s. We each have the mercy of God to receive a self to put to death, a kingdom to gain, a battle to fight and spiritual enemies to slay, comrades to aid, and rebels to win over. The ancient battle rages all around us, and the adventure we were born for beckons.”
THE MAIN CHARACTERS
St. John Paul the Great (1920-2005): The first and only Polish pope, Karol Wojtyla, is a 19-year-old university student (a mystic who excels at acting and poetry) when Nazi Germany and communist Russia invade his homeland. Entering his 20s, he lived within 40 miles of the Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz and the communist mass murders of 20,000 at the Katyn Forest, the twin sources that sewed the seeds for his new role as a priest achieving his destiny. The rest of his life becomes an ongoing battle against the totalitarian forces of Nazism, Communism, and evil, an ongoing struggle to find and share the precarious yet essential balance between love and truth.
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004): The son of an alcoholic Catholic salesman and a holy Christian faith healer mother, Reagan grows from a lost child to a bold yet witty visionary. For years, he lacked eyeglasses learning to rely on his imagination to “fill in the blanks of a blurry world.” Similarly, the source of Reagan’s agony sews the seeds for his new role, moving him from actor to president. He too uses unique gifts to excel in acting, the new arts of radio/movies/TV, and finally, public speaking, beginning a lifelong crusade against communism. When he sees John Paul’s power over Poles in 1979, he sees what others can’t: “That’s it!” He sees the way “we win, and they lose.”
Mary, Mother of Jesus. Mary plays a pivotal role in the story of this relationship. Both men believed the “Fatima story” of Mary visiting three shepherd children in 1917, warning them about the dangers of a communist Russia and the shooting of a pope. Both men, shockingly, were shot and survived 44 days apart. Each convinced God saved their lives for a particular purpose. John Paul believed Mary herself directed the bullets that should have killed him. John Paul was shot on May 13, 1981 - 64 years to the hour and day after Mary’s first Fatima appearance. Mary told the Fatima children three secrets and the way to crush Soviet communism.
Emilia and Karol Wojtyla Sr. Now going through canonization, we learn about JPII’s parents, who were told to abort him. Instead, we see how they formed him for his destiny.
Nelle and Jack Reagan. As different as night and day, Reagan’s parents show Reagan everything happens for a reason.
THE SUPPORTING PLAYERS
Sister Lucia, the longest-living Fatima shepherd child, provides both men with key “missing pieces of the puzzle. She died in 2005.
Mikhail Gorbachev, secretly baptized in an atheist nation banning the practice. Was he a “closet-Christian” forced to act by a nuclear disaster at Chernobyl?
Patti Reagan. She spotted the changed sense of driven holy purpose in Reagan after he was shot.
Nancy Reagan, how and why Reagan said his second wife “saved my soul.”
Margaret Thatcher, the Methodist part of this plan who was herself narrowly spared from an assassination attempt.
St. Faustina, a Polish nun who became the first saint canonized in the 21st century. Her famous diary and its revelations were brought to John Paul II after his 1981 shooting.
THE EXPERTS
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY
The Narrators (interviews/content already gathered): Amazing insights into this story from Bishop Robert Barron, former National Security Advisor Richard Allen, historian Douglas Brinkley, Polish historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Ave Maria Radio founder Al Kresta, former Swiss Guard Mario Enzler, Newt Gingrich, Cold War scholar Anne Applebaum, historian H.W. Brands, historian Paul Kengor, author Peggy Noonan, author John O’Sullivan, former Vice President Mike Pence, Reagan aide Craig Shirley, Real Life Catholic founder Chris Stefanik, former President Donald Trump, Fr. John Riccardo, biographer George Weigel.
Opening theme for each episode of the series
(summarizing the purpose of the serial):
As Bishop Robert Barron explains in an exclusive interview: “I’m part of something much bigger. I’m part of a Divine Plan; I love that phrase that Ronald Reagan picked up. Life is not about me. It’s about God, and God’s purpose is through me. You find who you are when you surrender to God’s purposes. They felt chosen and equipped for a particular task in God’s Plan, and they found themselves in their surrender to it. The takeaway is God is an actor in history. You won’t understand history properly unless you see that. This story, which is about two great human actors, helps us to see that it’s the Divine Actor who is the most compelling actor on the stage.”
EPISODES
Prologue – Two Men Stood Up
Act I - Behind the Masks
Act II – Solidarity Fills Every Seat
Act III – The Unrepeatable Role
Act IV – Storm the Stage
Act V – The Door in the Wall
Epilogue – Standing Ovation
EPISODE # 1
Prologue - Renew the Face of the Earth
When the world was going one way, two brave men stood up and said “no.” They showed us a better way. Culture (meaning the cult of what you worship, including your faith), John Paul believed, ultimately trumps politics and economics. Why free will and the actor’s craft are such strong parallels? The thrust of the message these former actors communicated to the world would foreshadow exactly how their real-life destiny would come to fruition. Your background is the context you live within: your story and identity shape your mission.
EPISODE #2
Act I - Behind the Masks
Pride is such a foolish mask we all hide behind. These two stars weren’t afraid to let their masks down, revealing a glimpse of their hidden selves. In this episode, the first “mystery” in the five-decade/five-act Rosary, we learn about the men behind the actor’s masks, the real identity of the men we knew yet hardly knew.
EPISODE #3
Act II – Solidarity Fills Every Seat
A small movement snuck up on the rulers, showing up and quickly filled every seat in the house, electorally and in a culture-changing dramatic way. In this episode, we learn the power of building movements, families, and alliances, the reason Christ said he is present whenever two or more gather in my name.
EPISODE #4
Act III - The Unrepeatable Role
We are each actor on the stage of life, given an unrepeatable role to play, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In this episode, the third decade of this Rosary, we meet the humble tailor who led the “Living Rosary” group bringing John Paul to the priesthood. Each of us is created with unique and unrepeatable gifts that no one else has. Even when their plans change, our heroes meet new people who test or bring out their gifts.
EPISODE #5
Act IV - Storm the Stage
In history, life, and show business, there are moments so moving that the crowd storms the stage. In 1981 when both poured into a crowd greeting a hail of gunfire, and again in 1986, the world focused its attention on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Less noticed at the time? John Paul’s 1984 consecration of the world (but specifically Russia) to Mary. Within five years, the Soviet Union collapses, and Russians begin returning to religion. In this episode, both are shot but survive. We learn the meaning of Nelle Regan’s conviction that everything happens for a purpose and for a reason, or, as John Paul said, “In the realm of Divine Providence, there are no mere coincidences.”
EPISODE #6
Act V - The Door in the Wall
In the fifth of the five acts, we learn that your life’s story and identity perfectly prepare you to tackle the mission God has given you. Our Lady, appearing at Fatima in 1917, predicted the trajectory of the entire 20th century and the life battles of Reagan and John Paul. St. Faustina, in 1930s Krakow, just before John Paul arrived, received added clarity, including specific predictions about John Paul’s role in this Theo-Drama.
EPISODE #7
Epilogue – Standing Ovation
In conclusion, Reagan and John Paul left to the world and future generations messages of praying and acting daily to fight evil and free the world of error. Before leaving Poland during the life-altering “Nine Days that Changed the World” in June 1979, John Paul inspired Ronald Reagan and the world with a passionate plea to remember they are not who the world tells them and that he would remind them who they are. He concluded that plea by telling them, “I beg of you,” to remember who they were and where they had been. His plea to Poland in 1979 is now a plea to an entire Western Civilization that too often forgets its true identity and purpose.
THE DIVINE PLAN IMPACT
The 2019 Divine Plan film, still playing on EWTN, Amazon Prime, and Formed.org, has generated:
• More than 2 million visits to the film/book website.
• More than 750,000 views of the trailer.
• The Divine Plan was the #1 documentary for the evening of Nov 6, 2019.
• The Divine Plan was the No. 13 overall film on Nov 6, 2019, including all major studio film releases.
• The Divine Plan was the ONLY top 50 film in 2019 that screened one night (average was 54 nights).
• The Divine Plan was the #1 earning one-night-only film on Mojo Box Office 2019.