Posted on 09/30/2014 2:22:14 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
And on the eighth day, God created decent lighting and production values.
After years of releasing shoddy products featuring has-beens like Kirk Cameron, the Christian film industry is upping its game in an attempt to win a crossover audience. Is faith-based cinema about to go truly mainstream?
The year certainly has been good to believers. Heaven Is for Real with Greg Kinnear, a story about a boy who said he experienced the afterlife during surgery, raked in more than $100 million worldwide. Gods Not Dead, about a college student who debates his professor on the existence of a higher power, brought in $62 million on a budget of less than $5 Million. The Jesus biopic Son of God made $67 million.
Those three films are among the top Christian earners in history, trailing only 2004s The Passion of the Christ, which made a whopping $611 million.
Rick Santorum, former Republican presidential candidate and now head of Christian film studio EchoLight, tells The Post the success of 2014s crop of godly films is due to better writing, production and marketing. Faith-based movies traditionally havent been very well done, he says.
Fridays Left Behind just might be the most mainstream Christian flick yet. Its based on a popular book series about the rapture, but you might not guess that at first glance.
The film stars marquee talent Nicolas Cage and was directed by Vic Armstrong, a legendary stunt man best known for the Indiana Jones series. Cage was persuaded to take the role by his brother, Marc a DJ on New York Citys Q104.3 FM and, according to Cage, a pastor. Cage plays an airline pilot who must calm his passengers and land his plane after the world is thrown into chaos following the sudden disappearance of millions of people.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Cage is batting about .500 for his movies, which means a 50% chance it will be good, and 50% chance it will be a stinker.
What may tip the balance is that Hollywood wants religious peoples’ money, but hates religion and wants to destroy it.
As a recent example, the movie Noah. They made a very calculated decision to make it eco-pseudo-religious, which was a stinker in the US, making only 28% of its box office here. It did much better in the foreign market, where apparently audiences don’t really give a hoot about religious accuracy, so saw it as just another fantasy movie.
Please if your a stupid Christian sheep and a member of the cooperate church of America...
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That should be, “...you’re a stupid Christian”.
It is not a 19th Century invention. Have you not read I Thes 4:13-17, or I Cor 15:51-54.
Contrary to accepted belief, this position was taught by the church for the first 3 1/2 centuries, and was finally overcome by the teaching of Augustinan in the late 4th-5th century and his views on eschatology have been taught as doctrine ever since.
“but that story was a nineteenth-century invention,”
That statement has been debunked on FR many times.
This past Sunday I forked over $12.50 a piece for my wife and I to see “Gone With The Wind” at a movie theater. It was the 75th Anniversary showing. I hardly ever go to the movies. Yes I’ve saw the great movie on DVD many times, but had never watched it on a wide-screen. Hollywood does not make movies like that anymore. Only “cuss word” in the classic is when Rhett Butler says “damn” at the end. Now it’ “F” this and “F” that, and the stars having sex so much the movie should be rated XX. Trashy garbage.
No I’m not a Christian and would not be for any reason on this earth. And once in my life I was in the corporate church of America and was set free from false teaching and the anti-Christ rapture. The one who see’s the pit and doesn’t fall in is not the stupid sheep.
So FR has no ideal about the Word or G_D or not very much else! Your point?
I hope it’ll turn out at least half as good as Face-Off.
Well, no. Argued against, perhaps, but not debunked. I don’t really want to get into it here, since I was just commenting that this is not a “main stream” movie.
I read the Church Fathers on this pretty carefully, back some time ago. Of course there have been many recurrences of speculation about the End Times, but that particular story only gained ground in the nineteenth century. And then spread further fairly late in the twentieth century.
Wrong. Please don’t confuse millennialism with pre-trib rapture. The former was believed by some in the early Church, the latter is a 19th century invention. Both are false doctrine.
I know good sincere Christians that can’t watch (for example) any of the Sherwood Baptist movies because of poor production values. This never bothered me, Facing the Giants is one of my all-time favorite movies. I see their point, but to me the message overwhelms the production.
From what I read, this adaptation only looks at the first few minutes after the Rapture, so it’s probably a completely different story and will be more concerned with things like if airplanes will land safely and the general destruction caused.
If that’s the case, I have no interest in seeing this movie. I’m only interested in Christian fiction, documentaries, TV shows, etc., and also secular non-fiction, which is informative, including due to the fact that it’s always distorted somehow. But secular fiction for adults, in film, TV or book is spiritual poison. The entire purpose of it is to “conform people to this world” and it’s been doing that very effectively. Studying it appreciatively was actually to be my life’s purpose, as I graduated from a well-respected university English department, until the Lord effectively delivered me from that life and showed me true living! But I still have an understanding of literature and film that most people don’t, and that has only confirmed for me all the (Cont’d)
It would not be shown in that school in Temecula CA, where they are expunging all Christian books, books with Christians messages, or written by Christian authors.
It’s saving grace ( bad choice of words, I know), is in that Temecula school, they are giving away that were published by Christian publishers. This a Hollywood production and probably the only Christian is the original novelist, so it can be shown in the kids “Terrors of the 21st Century” class.
(Cont’d) more that secular fiction for adults (vs. children’s literature, just to be clear) is antichrist in spirit.
” Argued against, perhaps, but not debunked.”
Sure, thoroughly debunked. Your truth claim is that it was a “19th century invention.” Absolutely debunked many times here on FR with dates, names and places.
I read the book in 2007. It was pretty bad. There is a charismatic leader from Yugoslavia (or some place) that is really the devil incarnate, that somehow becomes in charge of the world. Sound familiar?
“So FR has no ideal about the Word or G_D or not very much else! Your point?”
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Cage also did an end of the world scenario where he saw the meaning behind random numbers and the fiery end of the world.
I think Cage is preparing himself to meet his maker. As we all should! Repent and and ask forgiveness before it is too late.
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