Hollywood is trying to figure out why marketing approaches like the ones used for The Passion of the Christ haven’t worked with other “faith”-type movies, like the newest Veggietales, The Nativity Story, or Evan Almighty. (Hat tip to Goodmanson)
I have a clue for Hollywood: Christians can smell a rat.
The Passion of the Christ was made by Mel Gibson. While he may be a closet anti-semite, he made The Passion with passion. He made that film out of a genuine love for Christ and a desire to tell the world about his story. This passion came through on every shot. Some will quibble about the fine details like personifying Satan as an androgynous thing with a creepy baby and bugs crawling about her face, or about the graphic nature of the violence in the film, but taken as a whole, this was a film about God’s overwhelming love for humanity and a filmmaker’s overwhelming love for Jesus. (It also helped that the movie’s star, Jim Caveziel was a devout Christian as well).
These other films are blatant attempts by Hollywood to make money off Christians. Evan Almighty, while entertaining for its actors (Morgan Freeman and Steve Carrell) and riding on the coat-tails of the original Jim Carrey vehicle, Bruce Almighty, it was a fairly crappy movie. Its only Biblical connection was one of light mockery, conveying in its subtext a mockery of the story of Noah, right up to the impossibiilty of a dam breaking in a mountain valley in the Appalachians flooding everything all the way to Capitol Hill. To think that Christians would engage in this movie in a similar way to The Passion should have been ludicrous from the beginning.
The most recent Veggietales movie should have had a shot. Veggietales has been a strong Christian brand of children’s entertainment for going on two decades. What brought this movie down was a combination of two factors: first, the first Veggietales movie, Jonah was definitely in the style of their shorter serials but was not well-scripted and simply wasn’t that good. This set lower expectations for a followup. Second, the production compant, Big Idea, was bought out by another company, and with that went the overt Christian, Bible focus. All subsequent videos produced by them have had Bible verses removed, and relied on the story to create an “inspirational” message instead of a Christian one. The same was true of The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. They were great characters, introduced and well loved in the serials, but because the movie had nothing to do with the Bible, Christians simply didn’t see the attraction.
The Nativity Story was the closest to really trying to recapture the The Passion’s market. It was brought low by several things - first, the production’s lack of passion for the subject. Second, its cast - the girl who played Mary in fact was pregnant at 16 with her long-term boyfriend. Christians really find it hard to take seriously a religious message presented by an unrepentant sinner. (Note: I said UNREPENTANT! Everyone sins, we all blow it. The issue is when someone sins then denies what they do is sin. That person has no moral authority.) Third, the film really wasn’t a significantly new take on the Christmas story. Gibson did something with the Passion that had never been done before. The Nativity Story did not.
There are new, unique takes on Biblical stories that have yet to be told. The Bible is full of excellent source material for Hollywood to make real money off, and successfuly sell to Christians. However, the missing ingredient for them is earnestness. If they want to pull off another Passion, they need a good, unique take, and they need a production team and cast that actually value the story they are telling. If it’s just a quick buck they are after, it’s doomed to fail.
