Jonathan Bock, a former sitcom writer who founded Grace Hill Media to specialize in Christian marketing, was hired to help sell Universal’s “Cinderella Man,” Fox’s “Kingdom of Heaven” and Sony Pictures’ “Christmas With the Kranks.” And he is currently advising Sony on what is likely to be one of the most problematic movies of the coming year for Christian moviegoers, “The Da Vinci Code,” based on the best-selling novel that challenges basic Christian dogma….
Sony declined to discuss plans for “The Da Vinci Code.” But Mr. Schwartz of New Line Cinema said Mr. Bock reviewed the script for that studio’s 2004 Hilary Duff movie, “Raise Your Voice,” about a small-town girl at a Los Angeles performing arts school, to see if it would appeal to Christian moviegoers. Mr. Bock said it might.
Hollywood understandably isn’t going to write off an audience as big as that which flooded theatres to see Passion of the Christ. But it’s not likely going to be able to replicate the phenomenon either. For the audiences of that film - or of the Left Behind or Omega Code films - the desire is not to see narrative somehow reflecting religious ideas or sensibilities. It’s the desire to see narratives which themselves are Biblical (or apocryphal). That’s what they think Hollywood should be producing.
Now, television producers (particularly the ones who produce for CBS) have found that a homespun spirituality (in the wake of “Touched by and Angel”) sells as a formula. But I’m not sure Hollywood can stop box office decline by becoming PAX on Screen.
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