‘The Chosen’ And ‘Am I Racist?’ Now Typify Success For Faith-Based Movies
(ANALYSIS) Two recent events have made major headlines in the faith-based film industry. The first was the dominance of faith-based, politically right-wing films at the domestic box office. The second was Dallas Jenkins’ announcement that his “The Chosen” TV series about Jesus was expanding into a whole “The Chosen” universe of shows.
These twin announcements give us the clearest picture of the faith-based industry's future — and validate a prediction I made for the industry just last year.
The weekend of Sept. 13-15 saw four out of the top 10 movies at the U.S. box office specifically made to appeal to the Christian right. Matt Walsh’s “Am I Racist?” documentary made mainstream news by coming in fourth at the box office with 4.7 million, the biggest opening for a documentary since Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” 20 years ago. The film — a Borat-style satire of antiracist DEI ideology — was made by the conservative media company The Daily Wire.
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That was only the tip of the iceberg. “Reagan” — the biopic love letter to Ronald Reagan starring Dennis Quaid — also stayed in the top 10 (in fifth place) with $3 million in its third weekend.
At the same time, the Kendrick Brothers’ “The Forge” came in at ninth with $2 million, and the religious political drama “God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust” came in at No. 10 with $1.5 million. (“Am I Racist?” and “Reagan” have stayed in the top ten this past week at Nos. 7 and 8, respectively).
‘The Chosen’ universe expands
“The Chosen” creator and showrunner Dallas Jenkins, meanwhile, used this year’s “Chosen Con” (exactly what it sounds like, an annual convention for fans of “The Chosen” in Orlando) to announce the launch of a new venture called “5&2 Studios,” which they will use to produce multiple Bible-based TV shows over the next several years.
The aim is to spin off of the original “Chosen” with an adaptation of the Book of Acts (“The Way of The Chosen”), a miniseries about Joseph, a three-season show about Moses, a reality survival TV show starring Bear Grylls and an animated show about kids meeting Jesus, starring Paul Walter Hauser.
The faith-based film industry has been due for a shakeup for some time. Its modern form launched with Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ” in 2004, which became the highest-grossing R-rated film ever at that time. This created a gold rush by different parties to see who would claim the market. Hollywood put out Biblical blockbusters like “Noah” and “Exodus: Gods and Kings” from some of their top directors, like Darren Aronofsky and Ridley Scott. Legendary filmmakers like Martin Scorcese and Paul Schrader funded religious passion projects like “Silence” and “First Reformed,” respectively.
Independent Christian creators, like the Kendrick Brothers, made low-budget inspirational Christian family dramas that deeply resonated with audiences and were so cheap to make that their ROI was incredible. So much so that Hollywood studios like Sony started helping fund those projects.
By the time “I Can Only Imagine” hit theaters in 2019 and became the highest-grossing independent film of that year, it was clear which model of the faith-based film industry had won. The biblical blockbusters and filmmaker passion projects were box office disappointments. “God’s Not Dead” had lost steam. The future was clear: Secular studios funding Christian filmmakers with a proven track record of making family-friendly inspirational dramas that appeal primarily to Christian moms who want a feel-good family and Christian-friendly content.
Lionsgate partnered with Jon Erwin’s Kingdom Story Company to make movies with trusted collaborators like Jon Gunn, while Angel Studios helped distribute and provided the crowdfunding platform for Dallas Jenkins (who would later partner with Lionsgate and other distributors). Amazon has found success teaming up with Roma Downey on projects like “On a Wing and a Prayer” and Jon Gunn on the upcoming “House of David” TV show.
With Jenkins’ announcement of “The Chosen” universe, the faith-based film industry Wild West is officially over. An establishment has been firmly created. The Erwin Brothers Kingdom Storybook Company, Jenkins’ 5&2 Studios, and people like Downey are the power players of the industry that partner with secular distributors to incubate and attract Christian creatives to tell stories for the faith-based market. And with Jenkins’ team’s steady work to translate their shows into other languages, this could have a sizable global impact as well.
Obviously — just like the big names of Hollywood studios — the individual players can and will be shaken up from time to time. And there will always be independent players. But the era of establishing an establishment is over. Any other players will somehow react to, compete with or subvert this establishment.
Angel Studios is a particularly interesting wild card. It’s a Utah-based studio that had hits with “The Chosen” and “Sound of Freedom,” but has had a hard time recreating those successes. And “The Chosen” parting ways with the company this year was a huge blow.
While this iteration of faith-based industry films has never been bigger, it’s also — in other ways — likely peaked. As I wrote last year, its model is built on marketing primarily to the tastes and values of American married Christian moms. And with the steady decline of women getting married in America — and when they do, getting married later — that audience is shrinking. Single women wildly differ in their values from married women (as seen in their voting patterns), and single women are increasingly leaving Christianity. For the first time in recent memory, more men are going to church in the younger generations than women.
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Rise of men attending church
That’s why I predicted that the faith-based film industry would pivot — or at least expand — to become more explicitly politically conservative and male audience-focused. While the demographic associations among women, family and faith — long the bedrock of American Christianity — are quickly shrinking, the demographic alliance among men, Christians and conservatives is only strengthening.
Generation Z men outnumber Gen Z women at church — the first generation in ages to do so. Gen Z males are less likely to identify as feminists than millennials. And even politically conservative people who don’t go to church are identifying as evangelical because of their political associations.
We see this alliance in the cultural sphere with the tight relationship between the religious conservatives at Daily Wire and the nonreligious — but increasingly religion-friendly — secular individuals like Elon Musk. Finally, single men and married ones don’t diverge much in their tastes and politics, making them a wider market to appeal to.
That’s what we see in the films from last weekend. “Am I Racist?” is built around very male-centric South Park-style transgressive political satire that’s explicitly political and has extended sequences showing Christians and Christian values being the antidote to the ideologies that are the target of said satire.
“Reagan” explicitly emphasizes the alliance between the former president’s politics, masculinity and faith. “The Forge” is a film about how Jesus is the answer to young men’s problems. “God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust” is about Christians entering politics to take back the culture from secular liberals, and so on.
Now that conservative-faith-based films have shown their box office potential, the money is going to start pouring in to make more. Just like “The Passion of the Christ” started a rush between Hollywood and independent filmmakers to corner this newly discovered market, this will do the same for the conservative, evangelical one. The only question is what this will look like. Happily, we already have a strong picture emerging.
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How Hollywood will respond
Hollywood will respond to this emerging audience in two ways: First, by dialing back the overt “woke” aspects of their tentpole titles, to not offend them. Second, by making a lot of “conservative-coded” films to appeal to that audience, winking at the conservative, faith-based and male demographics without fully embracing them.
Disney reportedly believed its LGBTQ kiss in “Lightyear” was a big part of that movie's failure and gave numerous notes to make many scenes of “Inside Out 2” and its protagonist Riley’s scenes “less gay.” And Disney has been rewarded for that choice by that movie becoming the highest-grossing animated film of all time.
We can expect a lot more of that.
Hollywood’s conservative-coded approach has been more mixed. Movies like “Top Gun: Maverick” were a hit, but movies like “Horizon Part 1” and shows like “Rings of Power” have had much worse reception and returns. The fact is, now that conservatives are starting to get conservative content, they’re much less likely to put up with conservative-coded.
Like with other faith-based films, it has to be the faithful making these movies. But unlike those movies, we’re also seeing the genres that will start to emerge from the faith-based conservative space.
The obvious and inevitable lead will be the comedic political documentary. The success of “Am I Racist?” means there will definitely be a sequel and imitators. (Babylon Bee is already coming out with its own satirical documentary about the Jan. 6 riots in less than a month).
This popularity makes sense since it taps into the boyish mockery of wokeness and “owning the libs”-style of culture-warring that has become such a part of right-wing political culture, driven in major part by a generation of conservative men who grew up on “South Park” episodes. Narrative satire will also probably continue to be made, but its reception has been more mixed so far. Daily Wire’s satire feature film “Lady Ballers” did well, but its “Family Guy”-style cartoon “Mr. Birchman” was less well received.
“Reagan” has been the other big hit. So we’re likely to see more dramas and biopics about historical people and events, as well as more from the people who made this one. Conservative Christians are clearly hungry for representations of history that don’t feel one-sided to them politically and don’t feel like they whitewash people’s faith out of that history. I would be surprised if someone doesn’t greenlight a George Washington movie really quickly.
“God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust” likewise shows there’s still interest in Christian legal political dramas. It’s probably the film’s quality — rather than its content — that is holding it back. If someone could do an Aaron Sorkin-esque drama that had decent enough writing, it might do very well. But no such screenwriter has yet emerged on the scene capable of that. Perhaps David Mamet, now that he’s become friendly with conservatives, will try his hand at it when he’s done making “The Prince.”
The genre that could be ready to explode is the faith-based adventure genre. Action-adventure-fantasy has long been a popular entertainment genre but has rarely been able to mesh well with the faith-based industry. There’s intense dissatisfaction within male and conservative groups with the state of adventure and sci-fi today (hence the reactions to “Star Wars” and “Marvel” going “woke”).
Thus far, recent attempts to break into that space from places like Angel Studios with “The Shift” and The Daily Wire’s “Terror on the Prairie” have not made a huge splash. However, one show might change all that. The Daily Wire’s “The Pendragon Cycle,” a fantasy retelling of the King Arthur legend with explicit Christian themes. (Fantasy also appeals to women, so they might be able to get both audiences at once with that). If faith-based industry films can crack the code on the adventure genre, they will have access to one of the most popular genres out there.
When it comes to the studios that are going to be making these films, The Daily Wire (and SDG distribution, which distributed “Am I Racist?” and was founded by the creators of “God’s Not Dead”) is the obvious frontrunner. Mark Joseph and distributor Showbiz Direct, who brought “Reagan” to the big screen, will definitely be getting more opportunities as well.
The Kendrick Brothers and Gibson were once the kings of faith-based films, but they aren’t anymore. So there could be dark horses we aren’t seeing yet. Loor, the self-described “based faith films” streaming services, has put out some good content. (In the past, I’ve positively reviewed its “Gothix” and “Fleur de Lis” projects). Time will only tell if it can attract enough investment and build enough of a library to compete.
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Implications for Christianity
This direction for the faith-based genre also has implications for the larger future of religious culture in America. The family, faith and conservative cultural alliance is already pretty strong — and these movies will likely only tighten those bonds. They also may make it easier to pass on those values to the next generation and reverse some of the demographic religious decline.
Religious conservatives have long had more kids than their progressive secular counterparts. But one big reason for rising secular progressivism has been the larger influence that secular institutions have on the kids of religious conservatives. So a strong family-religious-conservative media network could help increase the retention rate of those communities. Also, it’s long been known that a committed father is a particularly important factor in kids retaining their faith, so films that attract men may assist in that transmission.
At the same time, tying faith too tightly to non-faith-related cultural traits could also accelerate Christianity’s decline and grow its most toxic elements. Sociologist George Yancey found in a massive and comprehensive study that one of the biggest differences between conservative Christians and their mainline counterparts is that conservative ones primarily defined themselves based on their theology, whereas mainline ones primarily defined themselves by their politics. This may be one of the chief reasons that mainline churches collapsed so completely over the past century.
If conservative Christians do the same with their politics, they may have the same result. Additionally, Nancy Pearcey’s “The Toxic War on Masculinity” pointed out that while men who go to church more than three times a month are the least toxic, men who identify as Christians (but don’t go to church) are the most toxic. Encouraging a political identity primarily is therefore a dangerous thing.
The faith-based film industry has been a force in the American Christian imagination for the past two decades. Clearly, it will continue to be one for a long time to come. What that looks like remains to be seen.
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.