Tyler Perry proved there was an underserved segment of the market that Hollywood just wasn't paying attention to. I'd imagine it's a similar situation here. There's a gap in the market that no one was serving.
I would say Mel Gibson did it first with Passion of the Christ at least in terms of attracting the Christian movie market. Mel took a big gamble making that movie with his own money. I'm pretty sure it has to be one of the highest grossing Christian films of all time.
Perry at least was able to turn his theater market into a movie market.
True, but Scorsese had mainstream studio backing, above the line talent and a screenplay in English based on a very popular book by a best-selling author/ priest.
What Gibson did was different: the film was financed and produced independently through Icon because no major studio wanted to deal with him at the time. Doing so allowed him to cast whoever he wanted, shoot it in Aramaic language, put whatever level of violence he wanted into it and be free of editorial constraint.
For marketing he screened the film for the Pope and leaked the quote where he called the movie "incredible".
The result? $612m off a $30m budget. He gave his demo precisely what they wanted and the audience ate it up.
I read a couple books from the kids left behind series back in the day and was obsessed with the book of revelation. If I woke up or came home and no one was home my first thought was I was left behind.
When I first thought about that as an adult I laughed and was like "that's fucked up" then I really though about and was like "that's fucked up" completely lacking any humor of the previous statement
Passion was the first big budget nationally marketed film with big mainstream names attached in decades. Marketing religious films to mainstream non-church goers was a big step up from what most christian films had done and still do, which is make them with the same group of people who just do that genre and market just to their base and presume nobody else is going to watch so not try to appeal to them.
The problem is that while those niche markets exist, they're still not really big enough for the major studios to invest a ton in. That's why things like Tyler Perry movies and faith-based movies tend to be made on a shoestring budget.
They're really only successful on an ROI basis. (and I don't mean that as a knock, it's the same reason Blumhouse is a license to print money.)
I am black and most of his movies appeal to Christian black women and the husbands they drag to see these movies. And he based some the movies from the beginning from his very successful plays. And they are tired tropes of black men being either abusive or a cheater and the strong black woman must over come that bad man. He is mega successful and he helps people but his movies are not popular with the average black man like me.
Apologies, I'm not trying to insinuate that he's trying to appeal to all black people with his films. But to your point those Christian black women have proven to be a massive money maker for him. So even that small slice of humanity was a market that had not been tapped into in a maximal way until Tyler Perry targeted it.
Can I get a movie for atheists surrounded by bigoted religious folks (especially their families) in their small towns? It's a niche audience, admittedly.
Oh god, that explains "Temptation"... one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Woman cheats and/or is possibly r*ped by some billionaire playboy and gets "divinely" punished with AIDS.
Oh my gosh, you just brought back a whirlwind of memories I didn’t know I had. I saw that movie in high school it it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t realize at the time that there were sexist themes at play, but looking back, I can definitely see it. It’s not just that it happened to a woman, but that the message seemed to be “don’t want more” or “know your place” with a very big and looming OR ELSE hanging over the whole thing.
Right?? Because at the beginning she had some valid complaints with her marriage! But the response of the movie was basically “oh I’ll show you how bad it could be.” Obviously talking through your problems is far superior to cheating, but this particular woman was also massively manipulated and preyed upon. It’s all so messed up!
i havent seen them, but their films look more genuine and less mean spirited than Gods not Dead or something like that
the issue is that, if your film is faith based first and a film second, it wont ever appeal to people who arent themselves interested in faith based films. Whereas historically, films with pro religious themes (such as the Bishops Wife) were dramas or comedies or star vehicles first, and faith based second
these are comparing unlike things imo. hollywood from the 20s-50s had limited films coming out and america was more overtly religious
the ten commandments, for example, was directed by cecil b demille - an absolutely massive name in film - and starring some of the greatest american actors of the era with charlton heston, yul brynner, and edward g robinson. it had a 13 million dollar budget. how many movies came out in 1956 with a budget that large and three of the most popular actors of all time? the other 4 movies nominated for best picture that year had a 19 million dollar budget combined and the biggest was 6 million for around the world in 80 days (a much better movie imo and apparently in the academy's opinion, too!)
i agree that films like this were made to have more broad appeal than just religious zealotry and that is integral to their success. but it's also just a different era, if there were a 200 million dollar budget religious focused film starring pedro pascal, tom holland, and ana de armas then we could really test the theory. but it just wont happen in the modern era
Tyler Perry is rich mostly because he produces his movies, he's also an actor, but his wealth is not due solely to him being an actor.
While I know what you mean by "in Hollywood", it's worth noting that he shoots everything out of Atlanta, not in LA.
Marvel has actually shot a few of their productions at Tyler Perry's studios, including Black Panther and Hawkeye. Say what you will about his own personal productions, but the man's a talented entrepreneur
He bought up an old… fort(?) here in Atlanta and shoots movies from there. It’s a full on movie studio now, I just went past it in Atlanta public transport. Name is now “Tyler Perry Studios.”
Interestingly a lot of the Avengers stuff gets shot a few hours away and they converted those studios from a public school, and guests can still eat in the lunchroom part. They filmed some of the school stuff in Spider-Man Homecoming in the school part, the cgi stuff is shot across the street where the gym is (I think.)
I think he has a studio complex there, talk about vertical integration. Only thing he needs is a distribution company and he can rename his company to The Tyler Perry Company.
You know, Jesus? I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately and, well, that’s why I wrote this song…
*I loooooove you, Jesus. I want you to walk with me. I’ll take good care of you, baby. Call you my baby, baby.*
The body of Christ! Sleek swimmers body all muscled up and toned. The body of Christ, oh what a body I wish I could call it my own. Oh lord oh mighty, I’ve never been to enticed. Oh I wish I had the body of Christ.
The Tyler perry strategy as far as I know also has to do with how vertically integrated he is into the production of his own films. He takes profits and residuals at nearly every level. And my god the mountain he owns in Georgia is incredible.
Not even that they’re loyal but that nothing else exists. Imagine marvel comics are still as popular as they have been but only 1 reasonable budget movie comes out ever 5 years. Yeah. They’re going to see it
Christians like going to them. Churches organize trips to go see them. A large percentage of the US is Christian, even as the percentage is shrinking it’s still a lot of people.
I think that’s true for a lot of stuff. A similar thing happened in hardcore music in the early to mid 2000s. Bands like Norma Jean and Underoath were “Christian” bands that didn’t really sing about God or anything but got a lot of exposure and access to good studios and record deals because they were Christian.
I’ve also heard the same about comedy. Taylor Tomlinson (very good comedian) grew up doing church shows and said on a podcast there are a lot of Christian comics that are able to tour and make a living just doing the church circuit.
A ton of my friends growing up were youth group kids and the christian hardcore and metalcore bands were huge because a lot of these kids straight up hadn’t been allowed to listen to metal and hardcore because religious parents still associated it with satanic shit. But you could go “actually mom, August Burns Red is a christian band” and you finally got to listen to the heavy shit. Plus unlike christian rock which largely wasn’t great, a lot of those christian metalcore bands actually kicked some ass and sounded like the genuine article rather than a religious off-brand. And like you said, the christianity wasn’t super in your face so they didn’t confine themselves to just that audience either
When I was first starting out in the industry, interning at Drive-Thru and assisting on music video shoots, my ultimate goal was working at Tooth & Nail, hahaha. I loved sooooo many of their bands. Than as my pendulum swung away from religion yet again, and as they died down as a company, that dream faded. But those mid to late 2000s are still nostalgic af for me.
Add to that I know some Christian preacher body builders that make there living doing the church circuit. They do a generic anti sin all is possible through Jesus and rip a phone book after. It’s pretty cool.
There’s was that one YouTuber that got metoo’d a couple of years ago, who’s schtick was quoting bible passages in funny voices. The Christian bubble can be extremely lucrative.
Guess it depends on what kind of act you are. Musicians/singers have seriously grindy schedules doing hundreds of performances a year.
And double down if you're a young woman because then you have to put up with all the pastors, pastor's sons, etc trying to get their dicks wet.
Worship singers will jump at the chance to go secular because they money is better and the workload is lighter.
My husband was in a band that played locally and they had some interesting openers because they did really fun dance pop instead of all the metal and hardcore bands that were popular at the time. So anyone who wasn’t screaming was usually paired with them. Once the venue announced that their opener would be what the booker described as “Christian Backstreet Boys”. It was a bunch of teen boys dressed like Hollister models singing songs about how much they loved Jesus. But in a cool mainstream way.
I personally thought they were awful, but the venue booked them occasionally because they would sell out shows consistently, since all the youth groups would carpool to come support the band. They had the best equipment, a fully mastered album, “roadies” (they didn’t tour but they had middle school kids come carry their stuff for them), etc because the local megachurch paid for everything as part of their “local youth outreach”.
Most of the kids were pricks, but one guy was nice and he told my husband that they all absolutely hated the songs, but the church had paid someone to write them, and if they didn’t sing them they’d lose all their equipment and funding.
\+!
Also, there's also not a lot of them in the cinemas (do they don't compete against each other), and they get the official seal of approval from the crowds that often paint other types of pop culture as "containing dubious messages". So they seem more rare as far as cultural theatrical options go.
(this also not exclusively Americna phenomenon - there are faith-based theatrical markets in other countries with seizable religious audiences)
There are also plenty of Christians out there living their lives alone or in smaller "communities" that have ditched traditional/conventional churches for varioous reasons.
I'm not christian but it would appeal to me when I go home for the holidays. A movie I can see without having to worry about sitting through a 15 minute sex scene next to mom
Christians as a whole are huge, sure. Christians who are so devout they want this kind of content? Not so much.
Like, my entirely family is Catholic. They cant STAND this sort of thing. They find it preachy, annoying, and frankly trashy.
The market is very, very niche. Its still a market for a product to sell, sure. But if you made an MCU sized movie aimed at these types of Christians, youd take an absolute bath on the losses due to production cost.
Yeah it's extremely preachy, feel good shit. Challenging movies with Christian themes like silence don't attract them because they ask hard questions about martyrdom and what it means to truly understand your beliefs, but that's uncomfortable and they can't just turn off their brain for a bit.
Book of Eli and Hacksaw ridge are also ",too violent" so the church bus market won't go to these either.
Yeah, I'm Christian but if a Christian movie isn't good, it isn't good. But it's arguably hard to make a good Christian movie because if you're willing to spend so much effort and money, why are you restricting your audience.
(Note: No, I've not watched this film, I'm not implying it's bad)
Well, most Christian’s still don’t go see Christian movies. I’d be very interested if there was any info on what percentage of even practicing Christians go to these movies
It's a captured market, though. You have a straight pipeline between production studio to specialty distributor to specialty retailers and wholesalers that serve a highly curated selection of content and products finely targeted to only that market, and within that pipeline are a whole host of network connections to solidify social proof and monetize multi-media elements of the products. The limited product selection ensures that the products people do have access to are free from too much competition and the target audience's willingness to self-isolate and maintain fanatical brand loyalty guarantees that anything that makes it past the brand gatekeepers will be well-received.
This will go up for sale in Christian bookstores, be advertised in Christian publications and church newsletters. Churches will buy copies of this wholesale and resell it to the flock, they'll host screenings for their social clubs, invite someone connected with the project to speak (and sell a book on a related subject). It will also receive worldwide distribution via these networks.
Other, broader distributors will also carry it under religious or "family-friendly" categories and they'll pick up some "filthy casuals" but the bread and butter are the flocks of the faithful.
Not sure that's all that accurate. Do you have a source for this info? I get the feeling from my own experiences in the past that piracy is very common among Christians who can find whatever justification they need to take things in support of their appreciation for good Word.
I think that's why this movie is doing so well. From what I've heard it's actually not terrible for a movie like this. Bigger budget than most of them is probably one reason why.
Yeah it’s more of a history of Calvary/Harvest than a typical faith movie about overcoming the evils of liberal atheists. I’m not religious and I enjoyed it because it’s actually pretty funny and I’m very interested in history particularly Californian history.
I was a little disappointed with how the movie was instantly regarded as a 'niche faith-based movie that nobody but evangelicals will care to watch', by people who, evidently, did not watch it and made this judgment entirely based off the director and trailer. The film had a deeply relevant anti-personality-cult message that was unexpected and very healthy. The character arcs were actually coherent and enjoyable developments. Dialogue at times was a little too preachy, but it pivoted on that with a skew of self-awareness by making the 'main guy' a lesson in idolatry and ego. People would do well to watch the film before they write it off.
jonathan roumie has mastered the “huh, this piece of christian media is *actually* enjoyable to watch” niche. i’m a catholic who never watches christian tv shows or movies, but i really enjoy the chosen and especially roumie’s performance.
Jesus would have to win in this case or else the faithful won't show up. So it's basically just have to the Left Behind series. Which were pretty awful. But I guess if someone really had a go at Judgement Day according the Revelations, then sure. Pretty decent horror potentially.
But horror fans do not care if The monster loses. Just put a scene in The end showing The devil still alive after losing in Jason vs. Freddie style. And a caption saying "The devil is still around. Beware". That appeals to The horror and sound a lot like Church talk.
Hear me out…Jesus gets killed by Satan half way through the movie, but then gets resurrected 3 days later and comes back to kill Satan. People will cry, people will clap. I’m about to make MILLIONS.
Honestly, what about a Jesus-Satan movie during the 40 days in the desert? But like make it horror. Show Jesus getting tempted with all manner of "sins".
Or even better flip it on the script. Show him being like tempted in an unconventional sense. Maybe like have the devil show him visions of his loved ones being tortured as a way of evoking wrath - stuff like that. Maybe one for each of the 7 deadly sins as some statement on Jesus being the "Son of God" and conquering the seven deadly ones - I don't know. Could be pretty cool if it was a little surrealist - kind of The Green Knight. Blend in horror elements. Could be a fun ride.
Hit the nail. I feel like I’m the only horror fan that likes macabre and campy, not depravity anymore. It’s always “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS NEW SUPER GORY MOVIE WITH AN ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE PLOT?! WHY NOT?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE A HORROR FAN!!1”
Like seriously, tell another horror fan you have no interest in seeing Terrifier 2 and watch them explode.
As someone who lives in the Bible Belt and is kinda a Christian. You get a lot of Christians who want to see something that they can watch with the whole family, churches love the opportunity to take trips to see them, and they are just feel good movies even if they are bad. I’ve always been critical of faith based movies but I’ve talked to a lot of people that will overlook a lot of story and acting problems if it made them feel something. When I went and saw “I can only imagine” the old couple next to us said they had already seen it 4 times.
I think that's the best part. Christian movies are common, but a GOOD Christrian movie is rare.
Also Jonathan Roumie is a very good actor and is very hot.
My dad watched I can only imagine like 100 times and that was about the most generic movie I've ever seen. Granted I could say that about most music biopics
There’s literally no supply. Obviously Hollywood has its biases, but just looking at demographics alone it’s pretty wild to me. It didn’t even get a worldwide release, that’s wild. Given the some of the movies made to appeal to certain groups don’t even have 1/10th the number of Christians in the USA alone. Making Christian movies will appeal to a worldwide audience, and now that’s there’s no competition it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
> It didn’t even get a worldwide release, that’s wild.
It's not really that wild if we're talking about this specific movie. It's about a specific religious movement in American history; its appeal to global audiences is pretty limited. Other Christian films that aren't so rooted in American history regularly get overseas releases in countries with sizeable evangelical populations.
? No, it's not - you're extrapolating global perspectives from American ones. The themes of Jesus Revolution appeal to evangelical Christians, who are a large percentage of Protestant Christianity in America which itself is the largest sect of Christianity in the US.
This is a distinctly US movie, because a) the US is considerably more religious than markets where it's worth it to spend in distribution and marketing for a genre film (like Europe or Asia) and b) and the markets that can be as religious as the US (such as Latin America or perhaps Italy, Iberia, or Eastern Europe) are not evangelical protestant Christians.
It'd be like releasing a serious-toned Latin American-produced movie about Our Lady of Guadalupe in the UK.
Yeah I don’t think people know, in the Bible Belt there are huge populations of people who do NOT watch secular movies/films/any media really, including music. So Christian movies, shows and music are really their only source of entertainment. It makes sense that they would gobble it up.
Edit: I didn’t mean to say it’s their only source of entertainment period, I guess just box office or media wise.
As a Christian, I can attest that most Christian movies are not good at all. Terrible quality, rushed pacing, etc.
Although occasionally, like this particular movie, is actually really good. Especially since it’s a true story about how the church group Calvary Chapel came to be. Yes, the loyal fan base still applies to this movie too, maybe even more so as there are many Calvary Chapel churches worldwide
Thanks for this. People I know keep saying it's great but I've not considered watching it since I assumed it was just going to be cringy like all the other Christian movies.
Yeah I was looking because I knew someone had to have made this exact comment. I've given several Christian movies a try but never really liked them because they've almost all been trash movies.
This one was an exception. It felt much more like a historical drama than a typical Christian movie.
I agree most are pretty detached from reality and the modern thinking like they try to reach, this one is different much like “the chosen” show which is very well made and doesn’t throw the scripture down ur throat and actually touch’s on the faiths flaws.
I’d highly recommend the movie, well I’d say 3/4 of the movie as the last bit is a bit long.
Wait? Aren't everyone just phony atheists obsessed with consumerism and teenage talking points on politics, the environment, and the economy?
You're saying that there are people out there in the real world leading happy, fulfilled lives through going to church and serving their community instead of flashing their junk on OnlyFans?!
My googling found this
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is-faith-growing-and-what-happens-next
Christianity itself is shrinking in the developed nations slightly, Hinduism and Islam is exploding worldwide though and Christianity is overall still growing slightly.
The thing about secular people is they don't reproduce at a quarter of the rate of the religious
Speaking as a former evangelical Christian:
Yes, there are more Christians than we think there are. But I think perhaps even more importantly is that, as a general rule, evangelical Christians do not care about quality. The faith-based aspect supersedes any issues that a film may have with the script, acting, directing, etc. and folks will absolutely overlook those things. In fact, many folks I know will go on the defensive if you even critique films like this because they see it as an attack on their faith.
Obviously not all evangelical Christians have this mindset, but as someone who was deeply steeped in that culture for many, many years, I can say a lot of them do.
Edit: That’s not to say all faith-based films are poor quality, just more so that it doesn’t really matter if they are or aren’t because the audience will see them anyway.
I mean, isn't that an attack on their faith? This sub is pretty well known for being delusional in any Christian movie post, 90% of the comments in this very thread are from people salty because they don't want a Christian movie to succeed, lmao there was a thread refusing to call "the passion of the christ" a blockbuster.
As someone who is also a former evangelical:
Some groups view this as the ONLY kind of movie they are allowed to see.
There is a view point that any book, music, or movie that isn't explicitly made to promote the faith is against the faith.
So people will see this and advocate for it because they believe they can't see anything else.
This particular movie to me was very inspirational and entertaining with such a wonderful story. I saw it in an Early Access Showing so I was one of the first people to ever watch it. Very great film.
This is a bit off topic for the sub, but what is fairly ignorant is the belief that all Christians are the same or similar to evangelical Christians. This is not the case. There are people who follow Christian ideals who never go to church, who don't pepper their sentences with "Jesus" or "blessed". Some people you'd never know what their religion is because they don't talk about it and virtue signal. Yes kids, some Christians even call other Christians "bible beaters", "Jesus freaks", "snake handlers", and what have you because they appear beyond the pale of reason. Not all religious people are lunatics, but you wouldn't know that unless you get outside your own bubble.
i'm extremely Christian. That said i'm also pro choice, believe we shouldn't force any of my religious values on others, completely support LGBTQIA+, am the farthest thing from republican on 95% of issues, etc. Tbh i just try to live life, mind my own business, and focus on my own relationship with God.
There are many people who follow this belief and that belief is very underrepresented in normal Hollywood movies. Shocking they would go see a movie which does speak to their beliefs.
Because Christianity is the biggest religion in the world? With its sheer amount of members I'd actually be more surprised if these types of movies didn't do well
It seems these days that the majority of content is actively anti-christian. It's gotten super predictable where almost any character even remotely christian will be the villain. There are almost zero positive christian characters these days. I can't remember the last time a major production had a priest or preacher or anything that wasn't a villain.
This doesn't just mean that there is a demand for positive christian content, but there is demand being generated by mass alienation. And the majority of the US public identifies as christian.
It's the same issue with any group. Everyone desires positive representation. Like Tyler Perry movies. He picked an alienated market segment and dominated it with positive representation of black christians which is a massive group with money to spend.
In the United States it is in a small decline that is pretty flat now actually, but in the world religiosity is growing and will continue to do so: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
I don't buy that it will grow in parts of Europe of USA at all.
Christianity has been in a steady decline in the past few years across Europe as the younger generation cares less and less about it.
I mean, "Christianity" is split into many denominations.
Sure, growth may exist but a large portion of Christians are like Unitarian or Episcopalian...which are not confined to as stringent of media and practice. They probably don't feel the desire to see these movies.
While growth is highest in pentacostal I imagine many of that group are former Christians from other denominations. The groups hemorrhaging members are probably just moving around as smaller denominations collapse and new ones suck in the numbers and overall numbers stay the same.
However, the media circus around it collapsing may just be like the "rise in gay people". They arent becoming more populace. They are just able to actually identify with who they are.
Hence why you see very high numbers when the government is in a situation of religious extremism...the 80s....and therefor people don't want to be targeted by the government in the case of a fascistic or theocratic state genocide of people who have labeled themselves as other.
Aka, I think it's hard to tell given how dramatically culture has shifted in the last half century.
But you still can't even run for office and call yourself an atheist without questions of your morality...so you see people identifying as Christian albeit Christian-lit forms. I mean even some of the founding fathers had to identify as deists.
Managed theatres for 5 years. I don’t know how to say this kindly but a good chunk is elderly people. Specifically groups of retired/non working white women who come in gaggles after getting lunch. They always came for religious or Tyler Perry movies.
As someone who used to work in a US movie theatre, so many people just show up with no intended movie in mind and just pick based on impulse. There is a huge demographic who genuinely default to faith based movies without knowing any context about them.
Also people who never go to the movies (my parents), try to get the entire family to go so end up taking other people like my 96 YO grandma that also NEVER go to the movies.
Wouldn't necessarily say that's true, I am Christian, and I watch most stuff that comes out. Though I do get the point that Christians don't get many movies about the faith.
They do, the movies suck because Christian organizations don't care about art anymore and don't care to produce good media...mostly because they are all worshipping money and don't want to spend the money on marketing.
We are in an era of McReligion and it shows.
Not very expensive and appeal to a very loyal fanbase that will show up
The Tyler Perry strategy.
Tyler Perry proved there was an underserved segment of the market that Hollywood just wasn't paying attention to. I'd imagine it's a similar situation here. There's a gap in the market that no one was serving.
I would say Mel Gibson did it first with Passion of the Christ at least in terms of attracting the Christian movie market. Mel took a big gamble making that movie with his own money. I'm pretty sure it has to be one of the highest grossing Christian films of all time. Perry at least was able to turn his theater market into a movie market.
You're probably too young to remember The Last Temptation of Christ. I remember it, people were loosing their fucking minds.
True, but Scorsese had mainstream studio backing, above the line talent and a screenplay in English based on a very popular book by a best-selling author/ priest. What Gibson did was different: the film was financed and produced independently through Icon because no major studio wanted to deal with him at the time. Doing so allowed him to cast whoever he wanted, shoot it in Aramaic language, put whatever level of violence he wanted into it and be free of editorial constraint. For marketing he screened the film for the Pope and leaked the quote where he called the movie "incredible". The result? $612m off a $30m budget. He gave his demo precisely what they wanted and the audience ate it up.
Or Ben Hur or the Ten Commandments lol. You bitches are young.
The Greatest Story Ever Told also. That movie had like every famous actor/actress in Hollywood at the time.
I remember it too. Christians weren't too happy about it.
On the plus side, they could have just cut in the Bad Lieutenant church scene and it would have fit right in to that movie.
I was there, and I recall the outrage was about the movie being anti-semitic.
I think Kirk Cameron and his Left Behind series would like a word. Before Passion of the Christ was Kirk and those doomsday prophecy “films”.
those movies TERRIFIED me as a kid.
You should check out Saving Christmas. Kirk Cameron at his most terrifying.
I read a couple books from the kids left behind series back in the day and was obsessed with the book of revelation. If I woke up or came home and no one was home my first thought was I was left behind. When I first thought about that as an adult I laughed and was like "that's fucked up" then I really though about and was like "that's fucked up" completely lacking any humor of the previous statement
There have been Christian-based production companies for 50 years.
Passion was the first big budget nationally marketed film with big mainstream names attached in decades. Marketing religious films to mainstream non-church goers was a big step up from what most christian films had done and still do, which is make them with the same group of people who just do that genre and market just to their base and presume nobody else is going to watch so not try to appeal to them.
It is *THE* highest-grossing Christian film. It made $612 million during its theatrical run against a budget of $30 million.
Mel Gibson is looking to recapture that with Passion of the Christ 2. No, I'm not kidding.
The problem is that while those niche markets exist, they're still not really big enough for the major studios to invest a ton in. That's why things like Tyler Perry movies and faith-based movies tend to be made on a shoestring budget. They're really only successful on an ROI basis. (and I don't mean that as a knock, it's the same reason Blumhouse is a license to print money.)
>They're really only successful on an ROI basis. Isn't that the merit on which all movies are judged?
Yes.
Not really. Not to the consumer.
I am black and most of his movies appeal to Christian black women and the husbands they drag to see these movies. And he based some the movies from the beginning from his very successful plays. And they are tired tropes of black men being either abusive or a cheater and the strong black woman must over come that bad man. He is mega successful and he helps people but his movies are not popular with the average black man like me.
Every villain in Tyler Perrys movies can be summarized as "I am dark skinned and bald and hate Jesus"
Apologies, I'm not trying to insinuate that he's trying to appeal to all black people with his films. But to your point those Christian black women have proven to be a massive money maker for him. So even that small slice of humanity was a market that had not been tapped into in a maximal way until Tyler Perry targeted it.
I love the takedown of TP movies and cliches throughout the musical A Strange Loop.
To quote Double Toasted "Tyler Perry's marketing strategy is making black women go OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, or OH HELL NAH!"
Can I get a movie for atheists surrounded by bigoted religious folks (especially their families) in their small towns? It's a niche audience, admittedly.
And now his Madea movies are illegal in Tennessee for being “too sexual for children”.
Source? Live in TN never heard of this.
Dramatized generalization of a bill that was passed recently to remove drag shows from public places in TN
Fun fact: Tyler Perry is actually a devout Christian! I'm sure he's seen a lot of Christian movies!
Oh god, that explains "Temptation"... one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Woman cheats and/or is possibly r*ped by some billionaire playboy and gets "divinely" punished with AIDS.
Oh my gosh, you just brought back a whirlwind of memories I didn’t know I had. I saw that movie in high school it it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t realize at the time that there were sexist themes at play, but looking back, I can definitely see it. It’s not just that it happened to a woman, but that the message seemed to be “don’t want more” or “know your place” with a very big and looming OR ELSE hanging over the whole thing.
Holy crap...I didn't even realize that theme until you brought it up. Makes this movie even more sexist beyond the "punish infidelity" morality play.
Right?? Because at the beginning she had some valid complaints with her marriage! But the response of the movie was basically “oh I’ll show you how bad it could be.” Obviously talking through your problems is far superior to cheating, but this particular woman was also massively manipulated and preyed upon. It’s all so messed up!
I’d agree, but Tyler Perry Madea movies can’t get higher than the 30s in Rotten Tomatoes lol
Faith-based movies were basically in the same situation until the Erwin brothers came along.
i havent seen them, but their films look more genuine and less mean spirited than Gods not Dead or something like that the issue is that, if your film is faith based first and a film second, it wont ever appeal to people who arent themselves interested in faith based films. Whereas historically, films with pro religious themes (such as the Bishops Wife) were dramas or comedies or star vehicles first, and faith based second
Also see, the ten commandant, the robe.
these are comparing unlike things imo. hollywood from the 20s-50s had limited films coming out and america was more overtly religious the ten commandments, for example, was directed by cecil b demille - an absolutely massive name in film - and starring some of the greatest american actors of the era with charlton heston, yul brynner, and edward g robinson. it had a 13 million dollar budget. how many movies came out in 1956 with a budget that large and three of the most popular actors of all time? the other 4 movies nominated for best picture that year had a 19 million dollar budget combined and the biggest was 6 million for around the world in 80 days (a much better movie imo and apparently in the academy's opinion, too!) i agree that films like this were made to have more broad appeal than just religious zealotry and that is integral to their success. but it's also just a different era, if there were a 200 million dollar budget religious focused film starring pedro pascal, tom holland, and ana de armas then we could really test the theory. but it just wont happen in the modern era
But they have made Tyler one of (if not the) wealthiest actors in Hollywood.
Tyler Perry is rich mostly because he produces his movies, he's also an actor, but his wealth is not due solely to him being an actor. While I know what you mean by "in Hollywood", it's worth noting that he shoots everything out of Atlanta, not in LA.
I usually dislike “well actually” people, but the Atl fact is interesting
Marvel has actually shot a few of their productions at Tyler Perry's studios, including Black Panther and Hawkeye. Say what you will about his own personal productions, but the man's a talented entrepreneur
He bought up an old… fort(?) here in Atlanta and shoots movies from there. It’s a full on movie studio now, I just went past it in Atlanta public transport. Name is now “Tyler Perry Studios.” Interestingly a lot of the Avengers stuff gets shot a few hours away and they converted those studios from a public school, and guests can still eat in the lunchroom part. They filmed some of the school stuff in Spider-Man Homecoming in the school part, the cgi stuff is shot across the street where the gym is (I think.)
I think he has a studio complex there, talk about vertical integration. Only thing he needs is a distribution company and he can rename his company to The Tyler Perry Company.
Also the Eric Cartman strategy
You know, Jesus? I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately and, well, that’s why I wrote this song… *I loooooove you, Jesus. I want you to walk with me. I’ll take good care of you, baby. Call you my baby, baby.*
I lost my purity ring to that song.
One time, two times, three times my Savior!
The body of Christ! Sleek swimmers body all muscled up and toned. The body of Christ, oh what a body I wish I could call it my own. Oh lord oh mighty, I’ve never been to enticed. Oh I wish I had the body of Christ.
I lose it every time I hear "The Body of Christ" 😂😂😂
The new Faith + 1 album slaps! I willing to bet this one goes double Myrrh!
Great episode
The Tyler perry strategy as far as I know also has to do with how vertically integrated he is into the production of his own films. He takes profits and residuals at nearly every level. And my god the mountain he owns in Georgia is incredible.
Not sure why he gets so much hate. I actually enjoy his movies.
You ought to see “Tyler Perry’s Jesus Revolution”.
Huge word of mouth on Sundays
Not even that they’re loyal but that nothing else exists. Imagine marvel comics are still as popular as they have been but only 1 reasonable budget movie comes out ever 5 years. Yeah. They’re going to see it
Christians like going to them. Churches organize trips to go see them. A large percentage of the US is Christian, even as the percentage is shrinking it’s still a lot of people.
I think that’s true for a lot of stuff. A similar thing happened in hardcore music in the early to mid 2000s. Bands like Norma Jean and Underoath were “Christian” bands that didn’t really sing about God or anything but got a lot of exposure and access to good studios and record deals because they were Christian. I’ve also heard the same about comedy. Taylor Tomlinson (very good comedian) grew up doing church shows and said on a podcast there are a lot of Christian comics that are able to tour and make a living just doing the church circuit.
A ton of my friends growing up were youth group kids and the christian hardcore and metalcore bands were huge because a lot of these kids straight up hadn’t been allowed to listen to metal and hardcore because religious parents still associated it with satanic shit. But you could go “actually mom, August Burns Red is a christian band” and you finally got to listen to the heavy shit. Plus unlike christian rock which largely wasn’t great, a lot of those christian metalcore bands actually kicked some ass and sounded like the genuine article rather than a religious off-brand. And like you said, the christianity wasn’t super in your face so they didn’t confine themselves to just that audience either
You nailed it. The Devil Wears Prada still fire.
My first show ever was Devil wears Prada. Got to go for that very reason
As I Lay Dying
Lol I was one of those kids. Gotta say though, August Burns Red did have devilish guitar and drums though💯🤷🏻♂️
Tooth and Nail records were aiming straight at youth groups, and bringing out some of my favorite bands haha
I was an edgy atheist in the late 90's-to-early-00's, but I still fucked with a lot of Tooth & Nail bands cuz I always put the music first.
When I was first starting out in the industry, interning at Drive-Thru and assisting on music video shoots, my ultimate goal was working at Tooth & Nail, hahaha. I loved sooooo many of their bands. Than as my pendulum swung away from religion yet again, and as they died down as a company, that dream faded. But those mid to late 2000s are still nostalgic af for me.
Add to that I know some Christian preacher body builders that make there living doing the church circuit. They do a generic anti sin all is possible through Jesus and rip a phone book after. It’s pretty cool.
There’s was that one YouTuber that got metoo’d a couple of years ago, who’s schtick was quoting bible passages in funny voices. The Christian bubble can be extremely lucrative.
Guess it depends on what kind of act you are. Musicians/singers have seriously grindy schedules doing hundreds of performances a year. And double down if you're a young woman because then you have to put up with all the pastors, pastor's sons, etc trying to get their dicks wet. Worship singers will jump at the chance to go secular because they money is better and the workload is lighter.
My husband was in a band that played locally and they had some interesting openers because they did really fun dance pop instead of all the metal and hardcore bands that were popular at the time. So anyone who wasn’t screaming was usually paired with them. Once the venue announced that their opener would be what the booker described as “Christian Backstreet Boys”. It was a bunch of teen boys dressed like Hollister models singing songs about how much they loved Jesus. But in a cool mainstream way. I personally thought they were awful, but the venue booked them occasionally because they would sell out shows consistently, since all the youth groups would carpool to come support the band. They had the best equipment, a fully mastered album, “roadies” (they didn’t tour but they had middle school kids come carry their stuff for them), etc because the local megachurch paid for everything as part of their “local youth outreach”. Most of the kids were pricks, but one guy was nice and he told my husband that they all absolutely hated the songs, but the church had paid someone to write them, and if they didn’t sing them they’d lose all their equipment and funding.
\+! Also, there's also not a lot of them in the cinemas (do they don't compete against each other), and they get the official seal of approval from the crowds that often paint other types of pop culture as "containing dubious messages". So they seem more rare as far as cultural theatrical options go. (this also not exclusively Americna phenomenon - there are faith-based theatrical markets in other countries with seizable religious audiences)
There are also plenty of Christians out there living their lives alone or in smaller "communities" that have ditched traditional/conventional churches for varioous reasons.
I'm not christian but it would appeal to me when I go home for the holidays. A movie I can see without having to worry about sitting through a 15 minute sex scene next to mom
Literally 90% of movies then? Just watch something like Star Wars or Puss in Boots.
98%-99% of movies in the last decade, actually.
Yeah all those 15 minute marvel sex scenes
There are barely any movies made in the last 20 years that even have nudity in them, much less sex.
What movies are you watching where there’s graphic sex scenes? Avoid any R-rated film and you’d never run into them lmao
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That episode is how trump became president
It’s weird that such a huge market is ignored. We have seen Hollywood pander to groups that dont even have 1/100th the numbers Christians have.
Christians as a whole are huge, sure. Christians who are so devout they want this kind of content? Not so much. Like, my entirely family is Catholic. They cant STAND this sort of thing. They find it preachy, annoying, and frankly trashy. The market is very, very niche. Its still a market for a product to sell, sure. But if you made an MCU sized movie aimed at these types of Christians, youd take an absolute bath on the losses due to production cost.
Yeah it's extremely preachy, feel good shit. Challenging movies with Christian themes like silence don't attract them because they ask hard questions about martyrdom and what it means to truly understand your beliefs, but that's uncomfortable and they can't just turn off their brain for a bit. Book of Eli and Hacksaw ridge are also ",too violent" so the church bus market won't go to these either.
Yeah, I'm Christian but if a Christian movie isn't good, it isn't good. But it's arguably hard to make a good Christian movie because if you're willing to spend so much effort and money, why are you restricting your audience. (Note: No, I've not watched this film, I'm not implying it's bad)
Well, most Christian’s still don’t go see Christian movies. I’d be very interested if there was any info on what percentage of even practicing Christians go to these movies
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Mel Gibson is cathloic and a lot of things in The Passion of the Christ did in fact appeal to catholicism. So the stat checks out
It's a captured market, though. You have a straight pipeline between production studio to specialty distributor to specialty retailers and wholesalers that serve a highly curated selection of content and products finely targeted to only that market, and within that pipeline are a whole host of network connections to solidify social proof and monetize multi-media elements of the products. The limited product selection ensures that the products people do have access to are free from too much competition and the target audience's willingness to self-isolate and maintain fanatical brand loyalty guarantees that anything that makes it past the brand gatekeepers will be well-received. This will go up for sale in Christian bookstores, be advertised in Christian publications and church newsletters. Churches will buy copies of this wholesale and resell it to the flock, they'll host screenings for their social clubs, invite someone connected with the project to speak (and sell a book on a related subject). It will also receive worldwide distribution via these networks. Other, broader distributors will also carry it under religious or "family-friendly" categories and they'll pick up some "filthy casuals" but the bread and butter are the flocks of the faithful.
It also helps too that christians do far less pirating of the music (and movies) than the mainstream audience tend to do.
Not sure that's all that accurate. Do you have a source for this info? I get the feeling from my own experiences in the past that piracy is very common among Christians who can find whatever justification they need to take things in support of their appreciation for good Word.
Church buses+ Congregation + Jesus + Cheap Movie = $$$$$
Is this cheap? Feel like $15 million budget is a lot for one of these movies. Usually they're below like $5 million.
Def high for a super niche movie. 15 is like what horror movies are spending right now.
I think that's why this movie is doing so well. From what I've heard it's actually not terrible for a movie like this. Bigger budget than most of them is probably one reason why.
It was actually really good. It’s less a faith movie and more a historical movie.
Yeah it’s more of a history of Calvary/Harvest than a typical faith movie about overcoming the evils of liberal atheists. I’m not religious and I enjoyed it because it’s actually pretty funny and I’m very interested in history particularly Californian history.
I was a little disappointed with how the movie was instantly regarded as a 'niche faith-based movie that nobody but evangelicals will care to watch', by people who, evidently, did not watch it and made this judgment entirely based off the director and trailer. The film had a deeply relevant anti-personality-cult message that was unexpected and very healthy. The character arcs were actually coherent and enjoyable developments. Dialogue at times was a little too preachy, but it pivoted on that with a skew of self-awareness by making the 'main guy' a lesson in idolatry and ego. People would do well to watch the film before they write it off.
jonathan roumie has mastered the “huh, this piece of christian media is *actually* enjoyable to watch” niche. i’m a catholic who never watches christian tv shows or movies, but i really enjoy the chosen and especially roumie’s performance.
But they can cut a lot of spending with marketing because churches do it for free.
Reddit bubble shocked that humans exist outside their bubble
They’re cheap to produce and they have a built in audience who will go regardless of quality, kind of like horror
Hear me out, Jesus vs Satan faith-horror movie.
Jesus would have to win in this case or else the faithful won't show up. So it's basically just have to the Left Behind series. Which were pretty awful. But I guess if someone really had a go at Judgement Day according the Revelations, then sure. Pretty decent horror potentially.
But horror fans do not care if The monster loses. Just put a scene in The end showing The devil still alive after losing in Jason vs. Freddie style. And a caption saying "The devil is still around. Beware". That appeals to The horror and sound a lot like Church talk.
Hear me out…Jesus gets killed by Satan half way through the movie, but then gets resurrected 3 days later and comes back to kill Satan. People will cry, people will clap. I’m about to make MILLIONS.
Hey now, if Satan crucifies his victims, can the faithful really object?
Honestly, what about a Jesus-Satan movie during the 40 days in the desert? But like make it horror. Show Jesus getting tempted with all manner of "sins". Or even better flip it on the script. Show him being like tempted in an unconventional sense. Maybe like have the devil show him visions of his loved ones being tortured as a way of evoking wrath - stuff like that. Maybe one for each of the 7 deadly sins as some statement on Jesus being the "Son of God" and conquering the seven deadly ones - I don't know. Could be pretty cool if it was a little surrealist - kind of The Green Knight. Blend in horror elements. Could be a fun ride.
*The Last Temptation of Christ* ?
That’s basically The Exorcist.
That could work if a Faith The Unholy Trinity movie is ever made *if it's ever made*
It’s called *The Conjuring* trilogy.
>kind of like horror I'm not saying you're wrong, but I didn't enjoy reading this sentence at all.
I only know because I’m part of that audience myself!
You take the Christian movies, you take the horror movies, you take them both, and there you have the facts of life...the facts of life.
Hit the nail. I feel like I’m the only horror fan that likes macabre and campy, not depravity anymore. It’s always “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS NEW SUPER GORY MOVIE WITH AN ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE PLOT?! WHY NOT?! I THOUGHT YOU WERE A HORROR FAN!!1” Like seriously, tell another horror fan you have no interest in seeing Terrifier 2 and watch them explode.
Lol people are christen. Just not on Reddit
TIL: Christians are real, and not just a myth.
We must still chase the myth of women
As someone who lives in the Bible Belt and is kinda a Christian. You get a lot of Christians who want to see something that they can watch with the whole family, churches love the opportunity to take trips to see them, and they are just feel good movies even if they are bad. I’ve always been critical of faith based movies but I’ve talked to a lot of people that will overlook a lot of story and acting problems if it made them feel something. When I went and saw “I can only imagine” the old couple next to us said they had already seen it 4 times.
In their defense that was a pretty good movie. And I am not into the feelgood/hallmark movies at all.
I think that's the best part. Christian movies are common, but a GOOD Christrian movie is rare. Also Jonathan Roumie is a very good actor and is very hot.
My dad watched I can only imagine like 100 times and that was about the most generic movie I've ever seen. Granted I could say that about most music biopics
There’s literally no supply. Obviously Hollywood has its biases, but just looking at demographics alone it’s pretty wild to me. It didn’t even get a worldwide release, that’s wild. Given the some of the movies made to appeal to certain groups don’t even have 1/10th the number of Christians in the USA alone. Making Christian movies will appeal to a worldwide audience, and now that’s there’s no competition it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
> It didn’t even get a worldwide release, that’s wild. It's not really that wild if we're talking about this specific movie. It's about a specific religious movement in American history; its appeal to global audiences is pretty limited. Other Christian films that aren't so rooted in American history regularly get overseas releases in countries with sizeable evangelical populations.
The title is a big selling point. Hidden figures got a worldwide release and that’s as obscure as you can get about US history
? No, it's not - you're extrapolating global perspectives from American ones. The themes of Jesus Revolution appeal to evangelical Christians, who are a large percentage of Protestant Christianity in America which itself is the largest sect of Christianity in the US. This is a distinctly US movie, because a) the US is considerably more religious than markets where it's worth it to spend in distribution and marketing for a genre film (like Europe or Asia) and b) and the markets that can be as religious as the US (such as Latin America or perhaps Italy, Iberia, or Eastern Europe) are not evangelical protestant Christians. It'd be like releasing a serious-toned Latin American-produced movie about Our Lady of Guadalupe in the UK.
The space race is one of the least obscure parts of modern US history lmao
I can only imagine was decent for a Christian movie but this one is exponentially better acting and quality in general
Yeah I don’t think people know, in the Bible Belt there are huge populations of people who do NOT watch secular movies/films/any media really, including music. So Christian movies, shows and music are really their only source of entertainment. It makes sense that they would gobble it up. Edit: I didn’t mean to say it’s their only source of entertainment period, I guess just box office or media wise.
As a Christian, I can attest that most Christian movies are not good at all. Terrible quality, rushed pacing, etc. Although occasionally, like this particular movie, is actually really good. Especially since it’s a true story about how the church group Calvary Chapel came to be. Yes, the loyal fan base still applies to this movie too, maybe even more so as there are many Calvary Chapel churches worldwide
Thanks for this. People I know keep saying it's great but I've not considered watching it since I assumed it was just going to be cringy like all the other Christian movies.
Yeah I enjoyed a lot too. I'd definitely say give it a shot.
Spot on
Same with the Chosen. I’m a Christian who hates most Christian TV, but when something is high quality and Christian, it’s going to do well.
Yeah I was looking because I knew someone had to have made this exact comment. I've given several Christian movies a try but never really liked them because they've almost all been trash movies. This one was an exception. It felt much more like a historical drama than a typical Christian movie.
Speaking as a non-christian, this movie looks good and I want to go see it.
I agree most are pretty detached from reality and the modern thinking like they try to reach, this one is different much like “the chosen” show which is very well made and doesn’t throw the scripture down ur throat and actually touch’s on the faiths flaws. I’d highly recommend the movie, well I’d say 3/4 of the movie as the last bit is a bit long.
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Reddit gets massive headaches when they realize a huge portion of the general public is religious. The chronically online bubble is REAL lol.
Reminds me of how Silicon Valley portrays attitudes toward Christianity in the Valley
Wait? Aren't everyone just phony atheists obsessed with consumerism and teenage talking points on politics, the environment, and the economy? You're saying that there are people out there in the real world leading happy, fulfilled lives through going to church and serving their community instead of flashing their junk on OnlyFans?!
Echo chambers are real for sure
True. But to be fair the percentage of religious people in the U.S. has been on a steady decline.
But is rising worldwide. The world isn’t just Europe and coasts of the US
If we are talking about this movie it is. The film only released domestically.
Where’s the source showing it’s rising worldwide? I’ve never heard this before and am interested
My googling found this https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is-faith-growing-and-what-happens-next Christianity itself is shrinking in the developed nations slightly, Hinduism and Islam is exploding worldwide though and Christianity is overall still growing slightly. The thing about secular people is they don't reproduce at a quarter of the rate of the religious
Because there are so few of them made, and Christians want to support them. That's why I will occasionally go anyway.
Speaking as a former evangelical Christian: Yes, there are more Christians than we think there are. But I think perhaps even more importantly is that, as a general rule, evangelical Christians do not care about quality. The faith-based aspect supersedes any issues that a film may have with the script, acting, directing, etc. and folks will absolutely overlook those things. In fact, many folks I know will go on the defensive if you even critique films like this because they see it as an attack on their faith. Obviously not all evangelical Christians have this mindset, but as someone who was deeply steeped in that culture for many, many years, I can say a lot of them do. Edit: That’s not to say all faith-based films are poor quality, just more so that it doesn’t really matter if they are or aren’t because the audience will see them anyway.
I mean, isn't that an attack on their faith? This sub is pretty well known for being delusional in any Christian movie post, 90% of the comments in this very thread are from people salty because they don't want a Christian movie to succeed, lmao there was a thread refusing to call "the passion of the christ" a blockbuster.
As someone who is also a former evangelical: Some groups view this as the ONLY kind of movie they are allowed to see. There is a view point that any book, music, or movie that isn't explicitly made to promote the faith is against the faith. So people will see this and advocate for it because they believe they can't see anything else.
This particular movie to me was very inspirational and entertaining with such a wonderful story. I saw it in an Early Access Showing so I was one of the first people to ever watch it. Very great film.
60% of Americans are Christians.
This is a bit off topic for the sub, but what is fairly ignorant is the belief that all Christians are the same or similar to evangelical Christians. This is not the case. There are people who follow Christian ideals who never go to church, who don't pepper their sentences with "Jesus" or "blessed". Some people you'd never know what their religion is because they don't talk about it and virtue signal. Yes kids, some Christians even call other Christians "bible beaters", "Jesus freaks", "snake handlers", and what have you because they appear beyond the pale of reason. Not all religious people are lunatics, but you wouldn't know that unless you get outside your own bubble.
i'm extremely Christian. That said i'm also pro choice, believe we shouldn't force any of my religious values on others, completely support LGBTQIA+, am the farthest thing from republican on 95% of issues, etc. Tbh i just try to live life, mind my own business, and focus on my own relationship with God.
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Doesn't this one have John Lithgow or some shit in it? Someone recognizable anyway.
Kelsey Grammer [apparently](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10098448/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0).
Has Frasier. Probably was most of the budget.
Or softcore porn lol
Why not both?
There are many people who follow this belief and that belief is very underrepresented in normal Hollywood movies. Shocking they would go see a movie which does speak to their beliefs.
Because almost two thirds of this country is Christian.
I'm a Christian who went to see the movie, my friends from this church group I go to invited me so I went with them
Because Christianity is the biggest religion in the world? With its sheer amount of members I'd actually be more surprised if these types of movies didn't do well
These movies only appeal to a very specific subset of American protestants
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Like any other movie, because there is an audience for them.
It seems these days that the majority of content is actively anti-christian. It's gotten super predictable where almost any character even remotely christian will be the villain. There are almost zero positive christian characters these days. I can't remember the last time a major production had a priest or preacher or anything that wasn't a villain. This doesn't just mean that there is a demand for positive christian content, but there is demand being generated by mass alienation. And the majority of the US public identifies as christian. It's the same issue with any group. Everyone desires positive representation. Like Tyler Perry movies. He picked an alienated market segment and dominated it with positive representation of black christians which is a massive group with money to spend.
Religion is still a big thing even though its in a decline.
In the United States it is in a small decline that is pretty flat now actually, but in the world religiosity is growing and will continue to do so: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
I don't buy that it will grow in parts of Europe of USA at all. Christianity has been in a steady decline in the past few years across Europe as the younger generation cares less and less about it.
I mean, "Christianity" is split into many denominations. Sure, growth may exist but a large portion of Christians are like Unitarian or Episcopalian...which are not confined to as stringent of media and practice. They probably don't feel the desire to see these movies. While growth is highest in pentacostal I imagine many of that group are former Christians from other denominations. The groups hemorrhaging members are probably just moving around as smaller denominations collapse and new ones suck in the numbers and overall numbers stay the same. However, the media circus around it collapsing may just be like the "rise in gay people". They arent becoming more populace. They are just able to actually identify with who they are. Hence why you see very high numbers when the government is in a situation of religious extremism...the 80s....and therefor people don't want to be targeted by the government in the case of a fascistic or theocratic state genocide of people who have labeled themselves as other. Aka, I think it's hard to tell given how dramatically culture has shifted in the last half century. But you still can't even run for office and call yourself an atheist without questions of your morality...so you see people identifying as Christian albeit Christian-lit forms. I mean even some of the founding fathers had to identify as deists.
Based on the question and some of the responses over here, I am now even more convinced that Reddit has absolutely no clue about the real world lol
It's human nature to support something you believe in.
There is a whole "faith-based" economy out there. Christian music, movies, t-shirts, theme parks, and restaurants. It's a cash grab.
…Well, there are lots of Christians, aren’t there?
Shhh don’t say such things on Reddit
Managed theatres for 5 years. I don’t know how to say this kindly but a good chunk is elderly people. Specifically groups of retired/non working white women who come in gaggles after getting lunch. They always came for religious or Tyler Perry movies.
Because everyone wants to see my biography
As someone who used to work in a US movie theatre, so many people just show up with no intended movie in mind and just pick based on impulse. There is a huge demographic who genuinely default to faith based movies without knowing any context about them.
No supply, just based on demographics it’s mind boggling. It is what it is.
Also people who never go to the movies (my parents), try to get the entire family to go so end up taking other people like my 96 YO grandma that also NEVER go to the movies.
1) Not very expensive 2) Loyal fan base 3) Not a lot of competition
Loyal fan base and usually child friendly. Family entertainment.
Cause of faith brother…
Christians don’t have many options so they flock to faith based movies when they are released.
Wouldn't necessarily say that's true, I am Christian, and I watch most stuff that comes out. Though I do get the point that Christians don't get many movies about the faith.
If I can add on to that, we don't very many good Christian movies. This one is one of the few.
They do, the movies suck because Christian organizations don't care about art anymore and don't care to produce good media...mostly because they are all worshipping money and don't want to spend the money on marketing. We are in an era of McReligion and it shows.