ASSIST News Service (ANS) – PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Thursday, February 26, 2009 (re-print)
God Almighty:
Movies with Christian, Biblical Worldviews Do Best, Annual Christian Study Shows – Again
For Immediate Release
HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) — “Moviegoers in 2008 preferred movies with Christian and Biblical worldviews reflecting traditional values,” reports family and child advocate and media scholar Dr. Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission® (CFTVC), a Christian advocacy group based in Southern California .
Dr. Baehr said moviegoers in America and overseas also rejected movies that attacked Christianity, the Bible and “the traditional values of Western Civilization.”
For example, he noted that CFTVC’s annual analysis of the Top 270 or so movies released in 2008 showed that movies with strong or very strong Christian, Biblical or traditional worldviews (numbering 64 movies in total) averaged $39,778,002 million in America and Canada, but the 56 movies with strong or very strong secular humanist, anti-Christian and anti-biblical worldviews averaged only $12,442,428.
CFTVC’s study also shows that the five movies in 2008 with very strong Christian worldviews, which included “Prince Caspian” and “Fireproof” (the top-earning independent movie of 2008), did even better, averaging more than $43.5 million per movie in America and Canada.
| Dom. WV | B.O. Avg. |
| CCC | $43,515,987 |
| BB, BBB, CC, CCC | $39,778,002 |
| HH, HHH, AbAb, AbAbAb | $12,442,428 |
| AbAb + AbAbAb | $ 1,683,396 |
Overseas, Baehr said, 70% of the Top Ten Movies contained strong or very strong Christian, Biblical and/or traditional moral content in them, earning $2.445 billion, or 68%, of the $3.755 billion earned in 2008 by those 10 movies.
Those seven movies averaged $349.3 million per movie overseas.
“We believe that such a high average by these overseas blockbusters would have the same effect on all the other movies released overseas in 2008 as they did on all the major movies released in America and Canada,” Baehr said.
“Fourteen out of the 22 movies making $100 million or more overseas in 2008, or 63.6%, had either a Christian or moral worldview or a strong or very strong Christian or moral content,” Baehr added. “In contrast to that, only four out of those 22, or 18.2%, had any strong or very strong anti-Christian, anti-Bible content in them.”
CFTVC’s annual study also showed that only 27.3% of those 22 movies had a strong or very strong pagan or mixed worldview (sometimes with strong Christian or moral content reflecting a biblical worldview), only 13.6% had a strong or very strong Romantic worldview (in the sense of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings), only 22.7% had any liberal or left-wing politically correct content, only 9.1% had a secular humanist worldview, and only 9.1% had any anti-American or anti-patriotic content.
What about the most successful movies on home video in 2008?
“Eighty percent of the Top 5 Home Video Sales in 2008,” Baehr said, “were award winners at our Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala in 2009 or 2008, reflecting either a Christian or a general Biblical worldview.”
What about statistics for previous years?
Baehr said, “80% of the Top 5 Home Video Sales and Rentals in 2004, 2005 and 2006 had strong or very strong Christian, Biblical, moral, and redemptive content.”
Also, a 10-year study by CFTVC of 2,866 major movies released from 1999 through 2008 showed that movies with very strong Christian, Biblical or moral worldviews, numbering 204 movies, averaged more than $57 million per movie at the box office in America and Canada during those years.
“In contrast to that,” Baehr noted, “movies with very strong non-Christian, anti-Christian or anti-Biblical worldviews, totaling 608 movies, averaged only $19.3 million per movie in 1999 through 2008.”
Very Strong Worldviews Compared, 1999-2008
| Very Strong Worldviews | Avg. B.O. |
| Very strong Christian/Biblical/moral worldviews (CCC, BBB) | $57,039,704 |
| Very strong non-Christian worldviews (Non-CCC, Non-BBB) | $19,335,587 |
Baehr pointed out that most of the big blockbuster movies in America and Canada also become blockbusters overseas, so overseas numbers from past CFTVC reports show similar success rates.
CFTVC recently released a study of more than 2,025 movies that opened during the last seven years, which showed that, year in and year out, movies with conservative, pro-American values make far more money on average in America than movies reflecting a liberal or leftist ideology attacking those values.
“Clearly,” Dr. Baehr concluded, “Hollywood should produce family-friendly movies with very strong Christian, biblical, traditional values reflecting America’s Jewish, Christian and Western heritage.
“No matter how you slice the numbers, the good guys finish first, and good triumphs over evil.”
The Christian Film & Television Commission® is an advocacy group dedicated to “redeeming the values of the entertainment industry, according to biblical principles, by influencing industry executives to adopt higher standards and by informing and equipping the general public, especially parents with children.” The Commission’s flagship publication is Movieguide®: A Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment.
For more information, visit www.movieguide.org or call 1-800-899-6684.
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