LOS ANGELES (AP) — In movies this fall, Josh O'Connor plays a hot priest with a troubled past, Keanu Reeves an angel who has lost his wings and Elizabeth Olsen faces a romantic dilemma in the afterlife.
Hollywood seems to have found God.
But it's not just star-studded, big-budget Netflix films or A24 indie shows that are grappling with religion and its place in entertainment. In recent years, there has been an explosion of films and television shows taken from a faith-based perspective that promote or depict a particular faith, often Christianity, and which have performed particularly well with audiences.
There are animated Bible films from Angel, such as the upcoming musical David, which the company says has already surpassed $14 million in pre-sales for theater tickets ahead of its release this Friday, as well as docudramas such as Martin Scorsese's Saints. While Season 2 episodes are still airing, the first season of the Fox Nation series, which premiered last year, has become the most-watched on the platform.
“There's been a renaissance, sort of a revolution in spirituality and religious content,” said Tracy Blackwell, head of destination content for Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, at a recent Variety event in Beverly Hills on faith and spirituality in entertainment. Earlier this year, Amazon premiered the first season of its own biblical drama House of David and secured exclusive US streaming rights to The Chosen, the wildly popular drama series about the life of Jesus.
The Favorite Effect
Historically, some religious entertainment has done well at the box office: Mel Gibson's 2004 epic The Passion of the Christ was notoriously the highest-grossing R-rated film in the US and Canada in two decades. But for most of this century, religious hits have been few and far between.
“Hollywood has come under a lot of criticism from the religious community for not providing films that speak to them, that reflect their values,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, highlighting the box office potential of religious films.
Studios are recognizing that faith-based film and television is a worthwhile investment, thanks at least in part to the success of The Chosen, which Angel helped launch in 2017, even if it initially took a while to see those results.
“It was like pulling teeth to get people to watch it,” recalled Angel CEO and co-founder Neil Harmon. “People have this idea that faith means trash or preachy. And we had to overcome that barrier.”
Once they did this, it paid off. Since Fathom Entertainment began theatrical distribution of The Chosen in 2023, the series has grossed more than $116 million domestically.
Although not a Christian company, Angel is committed to distributing and selling “values-based entertainment” that includes, but is not limited to, stories of faith. They have produced numerous religious films, including “Zero AD”, a biblical epic about the massacre of the innocents described in the Gospel of Matthew, scheduled for release in 2026.
Meanwhile, Lionsgate theaters will premiere I Can Only Imagine 2, the sequel to the 2018 biopic starring Dennis Quaid that became one of the highest-grossing Christian films of all time in the United States, in February.
Co-director Andrew Ervin said he noticed a “massive shift” that occurred about five years ago, after years of a gap between demand for these kinds of films and Hollywood's willingness to make them.
“This is the first time that studios are really giving us a fair shake,” he said, although he believes the quality of content also played a role. “We didn't have the knowledge of how to direct films. So I think the storytelling has gotten a lot better.”
Lionsgate is also set to distribute the first of Gibson's two-part sequel, The Passion of the Christ, in 2027.
Definition of “faith-based”
Trying to determine what counts as faith-based programming is a bit like trying to determine what counts as pornography.
Themes of faith, guilt and “foolish grace” abound in O'Connor's Wake Dead: Mystery of the Knives Out, the third in director Rian Johnson's hit Netflix franchise. But few would call it a religious film.
Amanda Seyfried preaches celibacy and endures persecution in The Testament of Ann Lee, a musical biopic about the founder of the Shaker sect, which opens in cinemas on Christmas Day. But despite all the hype and excitement surrounding the film, little is said about its connection to faith.
Even Scorsese's 1988 The Last Temptation of Christ or director Paul Schrader's Oscar-nominated First Reformed, which also stars Seyfried, are unlikely to be widely perceived as Christian films, despite both films being outspoken about their traditions.
“This film was a way for him to explore his faith and discover who his God is,” Scorsese’s daughter Francesca, who directed an episode of Saints, said of “The Last Temptation of Christ.”
Conversely, the people behind some of these recent projects resist being labeled as overtly religious, even if audiences perceive them as such.
“I wouldn’t characterize it as overtly Christian,” Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in “The Chosen,” told The Associated Press last year. “It's a historical drama with Jesus at the center.”
For studios and filmmakers, acknowledging that a project is being told from a religious perspective can be a double-edged sword.
“If you agree to go to a movie theater to see a religious movie, you know there will be people around you who really enjoy the experience,” Dergarabedian said. “However, the minute you say 'faith-based,' it kind of puts the film in a box.”
Fad or here to stay
Many Christians are noticing this trend beyond its monetary potential. Phil Wickham, the Grammy-nominated Christian musician who voices the character David in the upcoming film “Angel,” said he's been pleased to see the success of shows like “Chosen One” and “House of David.”
“When I was growing up, all Christian media seemed so preachy to me,” Wickham said. “Even when I was a pastor's kid, it turned me off. But now I think there are more opportunities to tell bigger stories over the course of the series and more people wanting to really go deep and tell something excellent and beautiful.”
While it's too early to tell whether Hollywood has undergone a sea change or is a short-term fad, the success of some of these projects stands out amid a perilous period in the business.
“Hollywood tends to be after the money,” said Jason Klarman, chief digital and marketing officer at Fox News Media, while touting Fox Nation’s full slate of upcoming faith-based content, including Zachary Levi’s docudrama “David: King of Israel.” “Even when this trend ends, we will still do it.”
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