Faith-themed movies topped 2010 box office. About 500 members of the movie industry who attended the Movieguide Faith and Values Awards Friday night at the Universal Hilton were handed the organization’s annual Report to the Entertainment Industry. Here are the highlights, as reported by Hollywood Reporter:

Movies with pro-atheism messages in 2010, for example, earned an
average $6.6 million while movies portraying “very strong Biblical
morality” earned $78 million. Movies with lots of profanity earned $23
million and movies without profanity earned $50 million. Movies with
messages advocating a “Christian” worldview earned $105 million and
those advocating “miscellaneous morality” earned $10 million, according
to the study.

Films honored at the event, hosted by Kevin Sorbo, included The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Toy Story 3,  Secretariat and Mao’s Last Dancer.

Justin Bieber has legs. The openly Christian pop star‘s Never Say Never concert documentary rakes in another $13.6 million between Friday and Sunday — bringing its ten-day total too $48.5 million.

The Book of Mormon hits Broadway (or gets hit by it). The sacred text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints provides the title of a new Broadway musical comedy from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The irreverent production story follows two young Mormon missionaries in Uganda. If there’s a movie, chances are it won’t win a Movieguide Faith and Values Award — and, given those stats, won’t do very well at the box office. It’s also interesting, particularly after their TV show’s run-in with radical Islam, which holy book Parker and Stone chose to satirize. Mormons, to their credit, are quite a few steps down in the dangerous target department..

BTW, if someone really wants to produce a successful musical, how about a respectful story of faith utilizing some of the beautiful hymns sang in churches around the world every Sunday. The music is already written and would sound great in a Broadway theater.
 
Quote of the Day: “If they won’t write the kind of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves.”  So Christian author C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) is quoted as telling his friend and fellow Christian (Catholic) author J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings) in an interesting Big Hollywood blog written by Leo Grin.
IMHO: I think Lewis’ sentiment can also be rightly applied to movies, television, music and all  media. If we want a positive popular culture, we have to stop complaining and create it ourselves.  We know the audience is there. 

No blog tomorrow. See you Wednesday.