Why Can't Hollywood Stand Faith-Based Movies?

Challenges for Faith-Based Filmmaking

Despite the enormous success of films like The Passion of the Christ, Hollywood is still a hard place to make films that authentically portray faith and spirituality. It's a town that seems vaguely uncomfortable with the values of what it calls "flyover country", which is in turn deeply distrustful of the film industry and the people that run it. Mark Joseph, who has worked on films like The Chronicles of Narnia, The Passion of the Christ, Facing The Giants and others, takes a look at this tension between Christian themes and Hollywood filmmaking in his recent book from Bully! Pulpit Books, The Lion, The Professor, and The Movies: Narnia's Journey to the Big Screen. In the book, Joseph details the complicated issues that challenged the film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ enormously popular Chronicles of Narnia series, and offers some insight into the complex process of integrating Christian faith into well-crafted films.

Finding Filmmakers Sympathetic to People of Faith

One of the greatest hurdles facing films with religious themes is the recurring involvement of artists who are either ashamed of their religious heritage or outright hostile to faith-based stories. Joseph points out several instances when key players associated with the Narnia films either attempted to downplay their own religious backgrounds as well as the religious elements in the Narnia books or publicly reveled in telling stories of how they had worked hard on previous projects to de-Christianize them. The filmgoing public, particularly members of the Christian community, got the message and voted with their feet—the second Narnia film, Prince Caspian, made less than half as much as the first, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader made even less than that. When artists repeatedly insult their audience, eventually the audience gets the message and stays home.

Understanding “Flyover Country”

Every employee in a marketing firm, right down to the coffee runner, knows at least one key marketing axiom: know your audience. This is generally true of Hollywood as well—mention a common demographic to a studio executive and he or she will know their artistic tastes inside and out—with the notable exception of religious communities. Hollywood seems perennially out of touch with the interests and values of religious people, especially Christians. In The Lion, The Professor, and The Movies, Joseph quotes Walden Media’s president, Michael Flaherty, on religious audiences: “Throughout human history most of the great events and figures have been motivated by faith. . . . But then, at the same time, if it’s not in the DNA, you can’t apply it like makeup—like ‘oh, we’ll put a faith scene here to appeal to the church crowd.’ They’re a sophisticated audience, and they know when something isn’t genuine and authentic.” Religious audiences can tell when a work of art is pandering to their sensibilities, and filmmakers need to dig into the culture and theology of that audience if they want to produce successful and well-crafted religious films.

Understanding the Lifestyle

The “know your audience” principle isn’t restricted to the production of the film but applies to seemingly small details of distribution as well: Joseph mentions the December 9th release date of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and points out that it represented the studio’s serious lack of understanding of the typical church calendar. Mid-December is typically the busiest time of the year for churchgoing Americans, with numerous social and church functions leading up to the Christmas season, and is consequently one of the worst times of the year to release a film targeted at religious audiences. If Disney executives had been more aware of the Christian audience’s lifestyle and habits, the first Narnia film could have made significantly more money at the box office during it’s first two weeks. As if to underscore this point, the film experienced a sharp resurgence in ticket sales in the weeks after Christmas, reflecting the more relaxed schedule of millions of churchgoing Americans after the holiday season ends.

Remaining True

Any film adapted from a well-known source with religious themes needs to be faithful to the original material, whether the source is a biography of an important person of faith or a beloved children’s story written as a Christian allegory. In The Lion, The Professor, and The Movies, Mark Joseph talks about how this principle was abandoned for the second Narnia film: “Prince Caspian was far edgier and darker in tone, and, in keeping with [director] Adamson’s stated goal of making a film that reflected how he remembered things as opposed to what was actually on the written page, it took numerous liberties with the text of the book and seemed less interested in reaching the family audience that Walden and Disney had attempted to please.” The long list of bewildering departures from the tone and content of the Narnia stories infuriated Lewis fans and Christian moviegoers alike, and attendance for the second film plummeted accordingly. While reflecting the source material is always a concern for film adaptations, it is especially important for movies with religious themes given the fact that Hollywood already tends to shy away from faith and spirituality.

Collaborating with Faith Leaders

A significant factor in the success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was his willingness to screen the film for religious leaders several months before its official release. He solicited feedback and even made some changes in response to their ideas, and as a result they promoted the film in their social circles and often from their pulpits during Sunday services. In contrast, Disney refused to screen the Narnia films for anyone, including popular and influential Christian leaders like James Dobson and Chuck Colson, until shortly before the official release date. Entertainment news tends to travel slowly in Christian communities—most people of faith heard about The Passion through word of mouth, largely facilitated by people who had already seen the film months in advance. Any studio hoping for a strong turnout of religious people on opening weekend needs to be conscious of this fact and invest in building momentum in the months leading up to the film’s release.

Overcoming Christian Distrust

After decades of getting burned by Hollywood types who are out of touch with religious values and often openly hostile to the Christian community, people of faith have become deeply suspicious of the film industry. The studio marketing executive is often seen as “a corporate shill or a hired gun aiming to lure Christian America into movie theaters and give their seal of approval to evil Hollywood fare” (The Lion, The Professor, and The Movies). Studios seeking to draw Christians audiences will need to overcome this stigma. Reaching out to religious leaders and screening the film before the official release date is the best way to accomplish this—people of faith know not to recommend Hollywood films to anyone unless they have already seen it. Studios should also keep a close eye on statements made by the filmmakers, which are often insulting to Christian audiences. Finally, and most obviously, filmmakers should avoid graphic violence, language, and sexuality to begin with, or religious people simply won’t go.

Overstating Religious Themes

Outside of Hollywood, faith-based filmmaking often swings in the opposite direction, producing low-budget, poorly written, and overly preachy films that alienate secular viewers. Films are meant to tell stories and entertain an audience, not merely send a message, and serious filmmakers must learn to focus on crafting an interesting narrative and compelling characters rather than ensuring that their film merely has a sermon embedded somewhere. Indeed, great films with religious themes can and do appeal to secular Americans as well as devout Christians. For example, approximately half of the people who watched The Passion of the Christ were secular-leaning Americans, despite the widespread perception that evangelical Christians comprised most, if not all, of the film’s audience. And, as has been mentioned before, religious people can often be sophisticated consumers of art and entertainment, and they are growing increasingly tired of second-rate Christian films that sacrifice the story for the message.

Ashamed of Faith

Even when filmmakers and studios manage to authentically portray faith and spirituality in film, they often seem coy and even ashamed of those elements when promoting their work. In The Lion, The Professor, and The Movies, Joseph quotes a Narnia producer on the spirituality of the series: “I really believe you see whatever you want to see in the film. It’s about faith, whatever kind of faith you have. The first movie was about finding faith, and this [Prince Caspian] is the loss of faith and regaining of it. And that faith is whatever you want to make of it.” This sort of statement is ridiculous, notes Joseph, because “anybody who knew the first thing about Narnia knew full well that the entire arc of the story was built upon the Judeo-Christian tradition and that Aslan was a stand-in for Christ.” The creators of the Narnia films consistently seemed ashamed of the religious themes that were built in to their movie, and Christian folks got the message that they were not a supported or desirable audience for the film. Filmmakers with religiously-themed movies need to publicly acknowledge, or at least avoid suppressing, those themes if they want to hold an audience. Secular Americans won’t mind, as we saw with The Passion, and religious Americans will be more willing to support the film.

Return to “Flyover Country”

There are roughly 120 million religious people in America who attend some sort of service on a weekly basis. Those faithful denizens of “flyover country” are looking for thoughtful, well-made films that reflect their values and cater to their interests (just like any other demographic), and their numbers give them significant purchasing power at the movies. As soon as Hollywood realizes that and starts producing films that authentically portray faith and spirituality, both parties can begin to benefit. For more on the specific challenges that faced the film adaptation of the Chronicles of Narnia, check out Mark Joseph’s latest book from Bully! Pulpit Books, The Lion, The Professor, and The Movies: Narnia's Journey to the Big Screen.