Cinemagogue ContentJesus gets an Agent?
In the span of one week, my church received two screener DVDs of recent releases, our Acts 29 Director was in a conference call with Sylvester Stallone, and I was on the phone with a representative from Paramount Pictures wondering if churches would be interested in a documentary they’re considering. When God called me to be a pastor, the last thing I thought I’d be dealing with was Hollywood suits. It looks like 2007 could wind up being a very interesting year; I just wrestle with whether these relationships will fuel preaching or pandering.
In 2005, Mel Gibson’s controversial depiction of “The Passion of the Christ” blew Hollywood’s mind, making 370 million dollars in it’s theatrical release and becoming the highest grossing rated “R” film of all time. Coupled with the success of C.S. Lewis’ allegorical “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe”, major studio executives surmised that Jesus and Christian themes were at least trendy and they set out to keep the faith alive, financially speaking. Whereas religion has been avoided like the plague in most film and television for the last few decades, creating a false mirror of a culture which may not be Christian but claims to be quite spiritual, 2006 gave us Port Authority Officers crying out to God while trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center, Nascar driver Ricky Bobby praying to tiny baby Jesus in Talledega Nights, Rocky Balboa helping the helpless and reading scripture before a fight, and the Hallmarkish “Nativity Story” rolling out just in time for Christmas.
Studios have found bumps in the religious road, however. Gibson’s anti-Semitic comments in July ‘06 cast a shadow on his “Passion”, leaving doubts about his future as a filmmaker. Fortunately for Gibson, Rosie O’Donnell and Michael Richards took the hate speech spotlight off Mel just in time to save “Apocalypto” from cinematic apocalypse. While Apocalypto fared well, featuring a native hero oppressed by the tyranny of the primitive kingdom and masking a subversive message about depraved cultures and the movement of Christendom, the more overtly Christian “Nativity Story” performed poorly at the box office. Marketing Executives for major film studios are still losing sleep and racking their brains trying to understand what makes Jesus cool. The church phone rings, I pick it up, and suddenly Hollywood is dying to know what Christians want to see and hear.
