{"id":176,"date":"2011-02-20T16:08:36","date_gmt":"2011-02-20T16:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2011\/02\/faith-themed-movies.html"},"modified":"2011-02-20T16:08:36","modified_gmt":"2011-02-20T16:08:36","slug":"faith-themed-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2011\/02\/faith-themed-movies.html","title":{"rendered":"Faith sells at the box office + The Book of Mormon meets “South Park” on Broadway"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Movies with pro-atheism messages in 2010, for example, earned an
\naverage $6.6 million while movies portraying “very strong Biblical
\nmorality” earned $78 million. Movies with lots of profanity earned $23
\nmillion and movies without profanity earned $50 million. Movies with
\nmessages advocating a “Christian” worldview earned $105 million and
\nthose advocating “miscellaneous morality” earned $10 million, according
\nto the study.<\/p>\n

<\/i>Films honored at the event, hosted by Kevin Sorbo<\/a>, included The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/a><\/em>, Toy Story 3<\/em><\/a>, <\/em> Secretariat<\/i><\/a> and Mao’s Last Dancer<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Justin Bieber has legs.<\/b><\/a> The openly Christian pop star<\/a>‘s Never Say Never <\/i>concert documentary rakes in another $13.6 million between Friday and Sunday — bringing its ten-day total too $48.5 million.<\/p>\n

The Book of Mormon<\/i> hits Broadway (or gets hit by it).<\/b><\/a> The sacred text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints<\/a> provides the title of a new Broadway musical comedy from South Park<\/i><\/a> 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<\/a>, which holy book Parker and Stone chose to satirize. Mormons, to their credit<\/u>, are quite a few steps down in the dangerous target department..
BTW,<\/b> 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:<\/b><\/i> “If they won’t write the kind of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves.”<\/i>  So Christian author C.S. Lewis<\/a> (The Chronicles of Narnia<\/i>) is quoted as telling his friend and fellow Christian (Catholic) author J.R.R. Tolkien<\/a> (The Lord of the Rings<\/i>) in an interesting Big Hollywood blog written by Leo Grin<\/a>.
IMHO: <\/b>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.  <\/p>\n

No blog tomorrow. See you Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Kennedy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","caption":"John W. Kennedy"},"description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media & Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations & Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. 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