|
Everyday Life & Health With the phenomenal, $315 million success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Hollywood is finally making inroads with a largely untapped market -- the Christian Right.
“They just came together,” said Dr. Lynn Mitchell, head of the Religious Studies department at the University of Houston. “These people are on heightened alert.” Mike Comiskey, the head of Consuming Fire Outreach Ministries, a north Houston church which sold 47 movie tickets to the film to its congregation, says that the Christian community, which would have supported the film anyway, responded in droves to what he says was unfair criticism aimed at Gibson. When virtually no distribution companies wanted to touch the film due to the controversy surrounding it, Newmarket Films picked it up and employed with Gibson’s help a marketing scheme that was unprecedented for a film. The distributor screened the film for religious leaders and sent a promotional kit out to churches nationwide which included a DVD with a trailer for the film, interviews with Gibson and the film’s star Jim Caviezel, behind-the-scenes footage and a note from Gibson explaining why he wanted to make the film. Pastor Scott Hayes of North Houston Christian Fellowship says that the plan worked. He is one of many pastors across the country who screened the trailer for their congregations, then took it upon themselves to reel their communities into the theaters and, eventually, the churches. “It’s hard to get people sometimes to bring their friends to church,” said Hayes. “People sometimes have these preconceived ideas about church.” Hayes rented out a theater for a special preview screening the Monday before the film came out. The condition for the screening was that the church had to sell out the showing, which would be 500 seats. Hayes said that they could have done it twice over. “There was so much controversy surrounding it and all the talk about it, that people wanted to see it,” said Hayes. While Hayes contends that the film is a “powerful evangelistic tool,” Dr. Lynn Mitchell says that the film needs a certain context about the life of Christ to be fully understood by non-Christians. “I think they are expecting too much out of it,” said Mitchell. “I think it’s too much of an art film to be an evangelistic tool. People should be advised that the movie is more meaningful for Christians who already have some idea about the context.” Though Hayes had not seen the film before the church’s screening, he says that many pastors were comfortable with promoting it thanks to the seal of approval from respected Christian leaders such as Billy Graham and Lee Strobel, author of The Case for Christ. Many Christians are hoping now Hollywood will take heed of their influence. Christians have already impacted the publishing industry through Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins Left Behind apocalyptic book series, which has sold over 50 million copies to date. Christians have also entered the mainstream music industry thanks to cross-over acts such as Amy Grant and P.O.D. to rising rock act Switchfoot. Both Hayes and Mitchell say there is no problem with church leaders promoting The Passion of the Christ, despite the $200 million and rising estimated take-home for Gibson. Hayes says that because of the character Gibson showed in investing his own fortune in making something so meaningful to him, he deserves whatever benefits he can reap from it. “I almost see it as promoting something and financing something that is going to be a positive outreach evangelistic thing,” said Hayes. “To me, it’s money well spent. I think he’ll use it in a right manner. I say more power to him.” |
