by Jeff Childers
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a most encouraging story headlined, “Religious Movies Are Sweeping Hollywood. Rich Investors Are Pouring in Millions.” I bet you never saw that headline coming.
The long-form, magazine-style story began by describing scenes from the shooting of Amazon’s upcoming series, The House of David, about the life of Biblical King David. The series, a partnership with Christian studio The Wonder Project, is being filmed on location in dusty sets near Athens, Greece.
The Journal then mentioned hit series The Chosen (one of the most popular series in the world, regardless of genre), the movie Jesus Revolution, which grossed $54 million, and the movie Sound of Freedom, which grossed $250 million on a $15 million budget.
Hollywood was shocked by these hits that “seemed to materialize out of nowhere.” Even more surprising, The Chosen and the Sound of Freedom were both financed by fans, who raised money for those productions using crowdsourcing techniques. The article called them “a vast but underserved audience turned off by the dystopian dramas and grim antiheroes that loom large in pop culture.”
Dystopian dramas and grim antiheroes. See? They know.
Vernon Sanders, head of television at Amazon MGM Studios, explained Prime Video aims to be a “credible source” for “a catalog of faith-plus content” (including from non-Christian creators). For its part, Netflix is investing in faith-focused films from producers like Tyler Perry and DeVon Franklin, who are making the new movie R&B, a contemporary take on the biblical love story of Ruth and Boaz, set in the modern-day South.
It’s not just purely religious material, either. Angel Studios, which produced The Chosen, is currently filming Young Washington, an adventure movie about the youthful hijinks of America’s first president. The article referred to positive, good-beats-evil content as “faith-adjacent,” whatever that means.
There’s much that could be said about this inspirational development, like how artistically bankrupt Hollywood has become, with its endless production line of joyless woke remakes, humorless, ultraprocessed sequels, and formulaic progressive pabulum.
But I’m most interested in what this might suggest about the conservative counter-revolution. Recall the famous quip that politics is downstream from culture. If that observation holds in these baffling and bizarre times, then a growing cultural trend toward more optimistic and more faith-based (or even faith-adjacent) media could be a very good sign for upcoming political developments.
Keep the faith! We are getting there.
Good movies where you dont have to worry bout the kids.
