Christian Films Top Box Office, Says MovieGuide"
by AFA Journal
November 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Following the completion of a 10-year study of the theatrical box office, Dr. Ted Baehr, publisher of MovieGuide and chairman of The Christian Film and Television Commission, found that "Christian movies make two to seven times as much money, and often four to six times as much money, as movies with explicit sex and nudity."The conclusion came after an examination of almost 2,700 films that topped the box office from 1996 through 2005, and it revealed that sex and nudity do not sell as much as Hollywood pundits and Madison Avenue advertisers would like consumers to believe.
"For example, in 2005, movies with a very strong Christian worldview, such as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, averaged nearly $65 million at the box office, but movies with extreme, explicit sex and nudity, such as Sin City, and Inside Deep Throat, only averaged $11.2 million or $11.7 million," Baehr explained in a report of the study.
Christian movies also out-performed other films that contained only strong sexual content (rather than explicit sex and nudity) as well as movies containing more than 25 obscenities and profanities.
"[T]he vast majority of moviegoers, which includes the 141 million Americans who go to church every week, prefer positive Christian movies with morally uplifting content," Baehr said. "If Hollywood executives and filmmakers want to make more money at the box office, they should make more movies that reflect a very strong Christian worldview with very strong moral values."
This article, printed with permission, appears in the November/December 2006 issue of AFA Journal, a publication of the American Family Association.
