Does Hollywood Love Christians?
BIG HOLLYWOOD
By Dallas Jenkins on Uncategorized
After my first feature film Hometown Legend had been sold to Warner Brothers, I had some meetings with the WB marketing team in 2001. Near the end of their presentation, I said, "Now you know that this film has some faith elements in it, and my Dad (the executive producer) wrote the Left Behind books, so we could take advantage of his fan base and also promote the film to churches and youth groups." After an awkward pause where I assume they were expecting me to explain myself, they had two questions: "What are the Left Behind books, and what are youth groups?" After another awkward pause where I expected them to say they were kidding, I replied, "The Left Behind books have sold over 30 million copies, and youth groups are where the young people in a church gather every weekend and/or Wednesday night for an hour or so."
They adjusted their marketing plan.
This was before the Left Behind movies sold a few million DVD's and The Passion of the Christ opened to over $100 million despite being set 2000 years ago in a dead language. Now every studio in Hollywood is looking for "faith-based" projects, especially because this year's highest-grossing independent film was Fireproof, produced by a church for about $700,000 and grossing over $30 million. Several studios even have faith-based divisions. |
