America Entering Era of Religious Renaissance?

Is America actually starting to experience a religious renaissance?

A fair question to ask with the current rise in the faith-based movie industry.  What kickstarted this trend?  Could this enthusiasm lead to other areas of entertainment?  

I decided to research this to get a pulse on whether or not we are on the brink of something bigger, and I am sharing some findings of interest.

In order to project, we first need to review.

It used to be that just advertising and doing a media tour to create buzz around a new release of a faith-based film was not nearly enough.  According to an April 2017 article by the web's largest business news site, Business Insider, this specialized film market used to have to go the extra mile down a longer road that led across the country, building "a grassroots marketing campaign focused on certain congregations and churches, bus them to movie theaters, and let word of mouth build."

2004's "The Passion of the Christ"

Such was even the case a decade ago for Mel Gibson's blockbuster movie, "The Passion of the Christ".  This path of national organizing and outreach paid off particularly big for this 2004 breakthrough film.  "The Passion of the Christ" still holds the record for the highest grossing R-rated movie all of time.

Even Roma Downey, in her new book "Box of Butterflies", shares that after her TV show "Touched by An Angel" aired its first episodes on CBS in 1994, the series needed better ratings to secure a contract with the network for more episodes.  Both the cast and crew realized that it was necessary to journey nationwide for the personal touch in outreach to churches and youth groups.  These efforts were successful in eventually building a large enough faithful following, culminating into millions of viewers, to convince the network to make the program a part of their regular Sunday night line-up.  "Touched by an Angel" went on to become  the number one show and aired for a total of 9 seasons.

Now, however, as the Business Insider article from last year pointed out, two major developments over the past couple of years have emerged to make faith-based motion picture marketing a whole new ball game.  Both the upsurge in use of internet movie streaming and even the conservative reemergence in Washington's political leadership, as made evident in the Trump presidential victory, have improved the climate for this industry and created new opportunities. 

Invigorated, faith-based film fans are now even more freely seeking out the authenticity of values while still acknowledging the complexity of issues, as  film marketer/producer Erik Lokkesmoe pointed out in the Business Insider story.  Lokkesmoe, who runs Aspiration Studios, said the faith-based film industry has outgrown being limited to direct outreach to librarians, community leaders, teachers and pastors to grow fan support; the industry more needs to connect with the rising comeback influence of the Conservatives.  This community's ardent support for faith-based entertainment partially comes from feeling that their faith is under attack and their show of support serves as an affirmation.

Such people believe their film favorites can change the world, according to The Business Insider story's interview with studio/distributor Pure Flix.  Considered the Netflix of the faith-based film industry, Pure Flix has more than 5,000 titles available to stream and believes their audience, which many now call the "aspirational" audience, are looking for a message.  According to the company's CEO Michal Scott, "You have to drive the message first and then wrap an organic story around the message."  If it's just a great story, than it's just another mainstream Hollywood release.

Scott further shared that if a film accomplishes that formula, the aspirational audience tends to further engage by buying the book that the movie is based on and/or by starting community outreach. 

In a 2016 interview with MovieMaker.com, Jon Erwin, co-director of the religious sports drama "Woodlawn", described the faith-based film movement as a "mini revolution".  He sees himself and the others who presently lead this niche industry as the early pioneers who are blazing a trail as they take it to the next generation.

In the same article, "God's Not Dead" star Kevin Sorbo described, "TV today is full of so much violence, hate, and one-sided politics.  People are starving for projects like "God's Not Dead"."  His movie succeeded in becoming the number one Christian film in 2014.  Sorbo continues to be cast in a variety of other faith-based films. 

Sorbo went on to share that a good percentage of the faith-based film enthusiasts comprise Middle America, what Hollywood and New York have dismissed as "the flyover states".  "Those flyover states have millions of people that have morals and values that still mean something."


With these millions craving morals and values, indeed the renaissance in this one art form of motion picture may very well spread to other art forums and influencing platforms.  And if the success of faith-based films is any indication and even continues to swell still more, than those of us in those other forums and platforms should be preparing our surfboards to ride its spillover effect across America...from sea to shining sea.


For further reading, visit the articles referred to in this site:
 
http://www.businessinsider.com/faith-based-movies-in-trump-era-2017-4
https://www.moviemaker.com/archives/moviemaking/directing/box-office-prophets/
and the new book release, Roma Downey's "Box of Butterflies"