More Players, More Options

When Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ grossed more than $612 million worldwide and became North America's highest-grossing R-rated film ever, major studios such as 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures took notice. Today, their Fox Faith and Provident Film divisions, respectively, are among a growing number of content providers vying for a share of the faith-based market.

In the process, the line between the religious and secular markets is blurring, particularly when it comes to films and programs marketed as “family friendly.”

A recent example is Facing the Giants, a 2006 feature film about a high-school football coach whose faith helps turn around a losing team's fortunes.

“Facing the Giants is still on the bestseller rack at Target a year and two-thirds after it was released on DVD,” said Kris Fuhr, vice president of theatrical marketing at Provident, the movie's distributor. “So that tells you that the product may initially have an appeal with the faith audience, but you don't stay on the bestseller rack at Target for that long without having broadened out.”

Religious networks welcome faith-based studios such as Fox Faith and Provident because they provide additional sources of content. That, in turn, helps reduce the financial burden of producing films and documentaries in-house.

“We're excited about it,” said Trinity Broadcasting Network vice president of affiliate sales and marketing Bob Higley. “We now have more choices to get movies and documentaries and other programs that we didn't have before. We're able to air several films a month because of that.”

The newcomers can reduce costs in other ways, too.

“If these producers can make their money initially from big corporations like Fox Faith, which is part of 20th Century Fox, now they don't have to price-gouge the Christian networks,” Higley said. “We can't pay the license fees that a secular network could pay for a film that ran through theatrical release.”

Some newcomers also have brands that are household names outside of the faith-based market. That often benefits the religious networks that air their films by attracting viewers who otherwise would skip past their provider's religious tier.

“When there's a movie that we get from an outside producer, whether it's Fox Faith or Hallmark, ratings jump,” Higley said. “There's definitely a correlation. They're channel-grazing and maybe don't even realize that they hit a TBN channel, and they stick with it. The ratings do increase.”

EWTN takes a similar view. The Catholic-focused channel produces about 75% of its programming in-house, but has increased its collaboration with third parties when they have expertise in certain areas.

“I think it's good for everybody,” said EWTN president Michael Warsaw. “It certainly helps raise awareness of faith-based producers.”

Also helping attract mainstream audiences are stars such as Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif, who co-starred with John Rhys-Davies in the 2006 theatrical release One Night With the King. The film was produced by Gener8Xion Entertainment, whose CEO, Matthew Crouch, is the former vice president of TBN. Partially funded by TBN, One Night With the King was the first film Fox Faith released on a national scale.

Many films from faith-based studios are debuting or running on secular networks.

Fox Faith, for instance, sold The Redemption of Sarah Cain to Lifetime because the studio believed its offer was more than it would make from a theatrical release.

“We look at all of the windows of distribution,” said Fuhr, whose Provident Films releases to theaters, DVD and TV. “For instance, Facing the Giants' initial television window was with Starz. Later, it will have a window with TBN.

“The success of our films has afforded us the opportunity to have a much more mainstream TV window than other products.”

And although Provident sometimes is labeled as secular because it's part of the Sony empire, Fuhr stresses that it's part of the Provident Music Group, which is the No. 1 Christian music label in Nashville.

PMG's artists include Michael W. Smith, whose appeal crosses over to the secular market. That helps draw attention to any films carrying the Provident brand — and to the religious networks that air them.

“We are definitely a Christian content provider,” Fuhr said. “What is unique about us is that we're a group that bridges Christian producers such as Sherwood Pictures or Steve Taylor, and Sony Pictures.”