Prophets or Profits?

defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ...

... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

Web JewsOnFirst

Please email us
(click here)
catcher@JewsOnFirst.org

And "bookmark" us at
JewsOnFirst.org

Jews on First
P.O. Box 33821
Washington DC 20033

310-553-1146

Prophets or profits?

What motive drives film industry’s new passion?

By Alexandra Alter, The Columbus Dispatch, January 05, 2007

One of the most widely watched films in the world has no megastars, narrative twists or special effects. It bombed at the box office in 1979, earning a scant $4 million in U.S. theaters -- less than its $6 million budget. Yet the film went on to be translated into 950 languages, screened in 235 countries and has supposedly been seen some 6 billion times, reaching wider audiences than blockbusters such as ET, Star Wars and Titanic.

You’ve probably never heard of Jesus, a docudrama of the life of Christ created by Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and John Heyman, a British filmmaker and financier. But directors of the Jesus Project, an Orlando, Fla.-based nonprofit foundation created to promote the film, say it has led to 200 million conversions.

And if the makers of Jesus were shopping their script in Hollywood today, they would likely be banking on commercial as well as spiritual gains.

The staggering success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which grossed $371 million domestically, forged an unexpected new alliance between conservative Christians and Hollywood, inspiring a new generation of biblical epics.

Movie executives quickly seized on the apparent revelation that faith sells.

Evangelicals still vilify portions of the film industry for promoting violence and sexuality, but now they also see an effective medium for spreading their message to mainstream American audiences.

Late last year, The Nativity Story, a $65 million project from New Line Cinema about Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem, became the first feature film to premiere at the Vatican. Advance screenings were held for hundreds of congregations around the United States.

The movie, which opened Dec. 1, is one of several religious films to hit theaters last year. Others include The Color of the Cross, which depicts Jesus of Nazareth as a black man; One Night With the King, an adaptation of the biblical story of Queen Esther; and Facing the Giants, a feature film about a Christian highschool football team that was produced by a Baptist church’s "filmmaking ministry."

How did the entertainment industry -- champion of such irreverent Christmas fare as the South Park special featuring Jesus pinning Santa in a fight -- produce a film like The Nativity Story, which Ted Baehr of the Christian Film & Television Commission called "a sacred movie and a divine revelation"?

Many attribute Hollywood’s spiritual awakening to a worldly inspiration: the profits of The Passion. Sensing a successful formula, production companies have gone into overdrive in a rush to sweep up the faith-based market.

The Weinstein Co. recently struck a deal with Impact Productions, a Christian company, to finance, coproduce and distribute its films. FoxFaith, a new division of 20 th Century Fox that caters to the faithbased market, will release at least six religion-themed films this year, said Steve Feldstein, senior vice president of corporate and marketing communications for Fox Home Entertainment.

Good News Holdings, a Christian multimedia company, acquired film rights to Anne Rice’s best-selling novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt for a tentative December release. The company, which plans to make the film on an estimated budget of $40 million, is also developing a series of Christian-themed horror movies, according to its Web site.

"There’s a huge untapped marketplace out there that is interested in films that reflect their values," Feldstein said.

To promote its religious titles, Fox has strung together a network of 90,000 churches, ministries and Christian groups nationwide, Feldstein said.

He added that the company isn’t looking to spread Christian values. Rather, it hopes to gain access to an underserved and lucrative niche market.

According to CBA, an evangelical Christian trade group, the Christian market is a $4.2 billion industry.

"We’re in the business of entertainment here at Fox," Feldstein said. "It’s certainly not our job to preach or proselytize."

Pastors and Christian leaders interpret the trend differently, however.

For growing numbers of Christians entering the film-making business, big-name production companies can help them reach a much larger pool of potential converts.

David Bruce of Hollywood Jesus, a popular Web site that reviews movies from a Christian perspective, said Christians who once fought what they called the depravity of the entertainment industry by boycotting films are now getting behind the camera.

"Instead of throwing rocks, they started to wonder if they couldn’t contribute something," Bruce said.

Acrimony between conservative Christians and Hollywood hasn’t completely evaporated, however.

Last year, thousands of Christians around the country picketed movie theaters to protest The Da Vinci Code, which they called an affront to their faith. Film studios have continued to churn out movies with critical or satirical views of Christianity, including Saved, a feature film about a Christian high school that depicted Christian teens as sex-crazed, brainwashed hypocrites; Jesus Camp, a documentary about a fundamentalist summer camp in North Dakota for Pentecostal kids; and Deliver Us From Evil, a documentary about a Catholic priest in California who admitted to molesting children.

Christian commentators still frequently attack mainstream film and television studios for spreading what they regard as un-Christian values and mocking the faith.

Gary Cass of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, a conservative Christian lobbying group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said few Christians will be convinced by Hollywood’s new religious streak if the industry continues to peddle immorality.

Now that Christians are crossing into the mainstream, establishing their own screenwriting programs and Los Angeles film festivals, the secular and religious entertainment industries seem poised to merge.

But theologians like Robert Johnston, professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and author of Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue, remain skeptical that Christian movies will transcend the sentimental and literal tone that have so far defined them.

Based on the limp reviews and weak attendance that greeted The Nativity Story and other religious films last year, some have begun to ask whether the success of The Passion can be replicated.

"It’s yet to be seen whether Fox-Faith can find half a dozen quality Christian films to market each year," Johnston said. "The jury is out."

Fair Use Statement: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.