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Holy Man

1998 film by Stephen Herek

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 30, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Holy Man is a 1998 American satirical comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Herek, written by Tom Schulman, and starring Eddie Murphy, Jeff Goldblum, Kelly Preston, Robert Loggia and Jon Cryer. The film was produced by Touchstone Pictures, Caravan Pictures and Roger Birnbaum Productions and released on October 9, 1998 by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Holy Man grossed $27 million worldwide against a $60 million budget and received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics.

Editorial summary

“Holy Man” enters the record as 1998 film by Stephen Herek. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Holy, film and Stephen can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1998—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Holy, film and Stephen.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Holy Man” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Holy, film and Stephen provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1998.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Holy Man”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Holy Man primary sources, Holy Man archive and Holy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Holy Man”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Holy Man” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.