catholicsphere

The Nativity Story was released on DVD yesterday — just in time for Easter.

Hopefully it’s release on DVD will prompt many Christians to see it. Apparently many skipped the film during its theatrical run, which failed to make back even its production and marketing costs — making back about $46 million of the $65 million New Line Cinema spent.

Christianity Today, in an article “Nativity Comes Home”, gives a number of reasons why the film didn’t do very well.

One of the reasons given is that there wasn’t much time to put together a publicity campaign, particularly in Christian circles. However, I think that there were plenty of Christian media outlets, bloggers, priests and pastors, etc who poo-poo’d the film, which resulted in even those who’d heard about it not wanting to go see it.

My own opinion of the film is that there wasn’t enough to dislike about the film’s depiction of certain events to warrant a thumbs down, and Christian — even Catholic — media outlets should have been more active in encouraging people to see it.

[I]t’s the first part of Hardwicke’s observation—that so many people “missed it” in theaters—that had New Line execs (and other Hollywood bigwigs who were watching closely) wondering, “Where are all the Christians?” They weren’t expecting the monster numbers of The Passion of the Christ ($371 million domestically, $612 million worldwide), but they certainly hoped to do better at the cineplex.

If we want faith-based films or inspirational stories that complement our beliefs, we need to support such endeavors. We need to make sure that studios do not second-guess taking on these kinds of productions. Every time we give Hollywood a glimpse of the kind of support they might get from Christian audiences, we end up giving them reason to retreat from making additional films.

The relative success of “The Prince of Egypt” ($101 million domestic, $218 million worldwide) caused many movie studios to sit up and take notice. But, then you’ll see a movie like “Jonah, a VeggieTales movie” eek out a meager $25 million, (which incidentally cost Big Ideas it’s life). The huge success of “The Passion of the Christ” meets with lackluster response to “The Nativity Story”.

Hopefully co-producer Wyck Godfrey can salvage something from all this that might prompt major studios in Hollywood to continue to make good, faith-based films. He’s certainly trying to paint a positive picture for movie studios that they’ve learned what they need to do to appeal to Christian audiences:

“I think we’ve built a strong foundation,” Godfrey said. “I feel like this will bear more fruit down the line for more faith-based films. And I feel confident that we’ve made relationships around the country with church leaders, and next time we’ll be better prepared with our marketing plan.

If you missed seeing “The Nativity Story” at the theater, I encourage you to go out and buy this film (don’t just rent it) before the end of the week. And the next time that a decent Christian film is released, take the time to support it.

[tags]movies, christian, film, catholic, news, catholicsphere, faith, hollywood, church, the nativity story, the passion of the christ[/tags]