ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com, Web Site: www.assistnews.net


Friday, April 2, 2004

CHRISTIAN MOVIES EARN THE MOST MONEY

By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®

HOLLYWOOD, CA  (ANS) -- The spectacular financial success of Mel Gibson’s Christian movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, has stunned many media pundits, but this surprising event has not been a surprise to Dr. Ted Baehr and his staff at the Christian Film & Television Commission™, a religious advocacy group in Hollywood.

“We’ve been tracking the box office success of Christian movies for many years,” said Chairman Baehr, founder of the Commission. “Year in and year out, the statistics show that movies with strong Christian viewpoints make the most money.”

The Commission’s annual study of the major movies released theatrically in the United States shows that movies with very strong Christian worldviews do much better at the box office than movies with Non-Christian worldviews.

For example, movies with a very strong Christian worldview released in 2003, 2002, and 2001, such as FINDING NEMO, THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, the LORD OF THE RINGS movies, LUTHER, WE WERE SOLDIERS, and EVELYN, earned two to five times as much money on average in the United States and Canada as movies with very strong Non-Christian worldviews.

2003 Worldviews Compared
  Worldview Avg. B.O.
Very strong Christian worldview $77,296,571
Very strong Non-Christian worldviews $16,150,236

  Worldview Avg. B.O.
Christian $77,296,571
Occult $70,422,751
Pagan $25,233,085
Romantic $12,739,480
Homosexual $8,600,126
Anti-Christian  $5,812,522
Humanist $5,313,973
False Religion $717,197

2002 Worldviews Compared
  Worldview Avg. B.O.
Very strong Christian worldview $50,337,117
Very strong Non-Christian worldviews $15,919,505

  Worldview Avg. B.O.
Christian $50,337,117
Occult $48,654,107
Pagan $18,101,399
Romantic $7,013,373
Humanist $6,695,995
Anti-Christian  $3,245,082
Homosexual $83,835
Revisionist History $48,058

 2001 Worldviews Compared
  Worldview Avg. B.O.
Very strong Christian worldview $43,593,518
Very strong Non-Christian worldviews $23,422,536

  Worldview Avg. B.O.
Christian $43,593,518
Humanist $37,040,832
Occult $27,307,279
Pagan $24,225,088
Romantic $14,126,209
Communist  $6,506,412
Homosexual $478,824
Feminist $48,058
Anti-Patriotic $33,842

For interviews with Dr. Ted Baehr or the full 2004 Report to Hollywood, call (805) 383-2000.

(c) Baehr, 2003.
NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr: For more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest MOVIEGUIDE® magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our website at www.movieguide.org. MOVIEGUIDE® is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing media executives and artists that family-friendly and even Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year out. MOVIEGUIDE® now offers an online subscription to its magazine version, at www.movieguide.org. The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children to be media-wise consumers. MOVIEGUIDE® also regularly broadcasts several international TV and radio programs hosted by Dr. Baehr. Also, if you want to train your family to be media-wise, call 1-800-899-6684 in North America to order the book, video or audio version of THE MEDIA-WISE! FAMILY, Dr. Ted Baehr's latest book. © baehr, 2001
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.
   Send this story to a friend.