Moral Movies Make More Money?

Written by Phillip Winn
Published April 06, 2004

I've mentioned this before, but apparently the Christian Film and Television Commission is at it again, this time in the UK, trying to convince people that they can make more money with wholesome family movies than with sexy romps.

One of my complaints last year was that the CF&TC didn't seem to actually exist on the web. They now have a web page of sorts, so at least one can leave them feedback if one wishes. In fact, this new article quotes Ted Baehr, and that name rings a bell. leads me to discover Movieguide, and reminds me that Christianity Today mentioned Ted Baehr last month. Baehr does have a response to the article, but frankly, I'm not impressed.

So a picture emerges: one guy, with a possibly-shady ethical sense, does shaky analysis with a heavy bias and an economic interest, and Surprise! Sex in films is bad.

Of course, the numbers are invariably skewed by the inclusion of Finding Nemo, Toy Story, and Spider-man. After all, Spider-man trounced My Big Fat Greek Wedding at the box office — imagine that! Of course, MBFGW cost $5 million to produce and grossed $241 million here in the US, while Spider-man grossed $403 million on a budget of $139 million. Couldn't the lesson here just as easily be that spending nearly 28 times as much on a movie just might gross you nearly twice as much? After you subtract out the production costs and the marketing costs ($19 million for MBFGW vs $50 million for Spider-man), Spider-man made $3 million *less* than My Big Fat Greek Wedding! Never mind that Spider-man played on more than 1800 more screens than MBFGW.

Hey, I didn't choose to compare those two — Ted Baehr did.

There may be a point lurking somewhere underneath all the facile moralizing, but whether the issue is morality in film or incredibly good filmmaking by Pixar, I'm not sure. Until Ted Baehr release the list of films he used for analysis, together with the criteria he used to rate a film's "moral quality," I'm going to dismiss anything he says as more self-promotion.

(This article is also featured at W6: A Nearly-Complete Waste Of Bandwidth)

Phillip Winn is the Technical Director for BC Magazine, which leaves him far too little time to write, which makes every article he writes that much more precious.
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Moral Movies Make More Money?
Published: April 06, 2004
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Writer: Phillip Winn
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Comments

#1 — March 17, 2005 @ 16:36PM — Will

How about you get the numbers right. The article you are refering to was using UK gross numbers not US box office returns, as you did. If you look at the global box office for the two movies, spider man made about 288 Million (54%) more than MBFGW. I am sick of you people who try to dismiss with lies those on the right, who are giving perfectly good arguments from well known facts and data. You cant argue with them, all you can do is lie and give false numbers. You say you need to see the numbers. Why dont you look them up yourself? They are easily found on the web (BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM).

#2 — March 17, 2005 @ 18:23PM — geo

Will, you are an ardant, passionate movie fan. Who really gives a Flyin' F&%( anyway? It's just a movie... I don't have enough time in my day for movies. I don't have enough time in my week for movies. I probably watch 3 movies a year. I don't even watch T.V., I am a musician, I am an electrical engineer and I am going through the process of finishing up my 2nd major in Business. Climb off of your couch and get productive dude. There's a lot of territory to conquer and you're glued to the boob tube getting sucked into the reality of make believe.

It's really not anything to get that upset over. Really.

#3 — March 17, 2005 @ 18:55PM — SFC Ski

"... apparently the Christian Film and Television Commission ... trying to convince people that they can make more money with wholesome family movies than with sexy romps."

So?

Maybe pointing out to the industry that enough people are willing to PAY to see a movie that is not R-rated or relies on gratuitous sex and viloence is merely pointing out that there is a demand for that type of film.

I love a good hard R flick at times, with plenty of both, brain candy, if you will. I also want movies that I don't need either to drive the plot, am I demanding Quentin Tarantino go work for Disney?

Don't worry, Phil, as long as movies make money, plenty of movies will get made.

#4 — March 17, 2005 @ 19:25PM — DrPat [URL]

Gee, folks, that's why there are different genres -- one for each kind. Kid-flicks and chick-flicks, action-pics and horror and porn and artsy-fartsy stuff.

You pays yer money and you takes yer choice!

#5 — March 17, 2005 @ 21:48PM — Phillip Winn [URL]

And nearly a year later, the post is resurrected! I had to go back and read what I wrote eleven months ago to even measure exactly how incoherent Will was being.

I did notice a few things about the comment that made me decide not to write an overly long rebuttal:
1. He doesn't know how to end a question with a question mark.
2. He's sick of me after reading a single article.
3. He accuses me of lying even though I produced documentary links for my factual statements. Nine links in all!
4. He calls me "you people" and suggests I hate the right, when in fact most people who know me identify me as a conservative Christian.
5. He suggests I visit a website to which I linked multiple times in my article.

And on it goes. But hey, if the biggest nit someone can pick with my post is that a somewhat violent PG-13 action movie beat the pants off off a PG family movie, then I suppose they're making my point for me, so I'll let them carry on.

#6 — March 18, 2005 @ 13:25PM — D.B. Cooper

I think one has to define morality first. Unlike our resident electrician GEO, who evidently has taught himself to read by firelight, I watch more than three movies a year.

I also often watch television when a good basketball tournament is on. Anyway, there are markets for all kinds of films. A family film is never a lock at making money, though I notice quite a few of them do. But this world would be one fucking boring mudhole without "Once Upon a Time in West," "Night of the Living Dead," "Taxi Driver" and "Amityville II: The Possession."

If we lived in a world where nothing but remakes of "Yours, Mine and Ours" were constantly unleashed upon a vomiting public, violence would increase in the streets, riots would erupt and mobs would destroy civilization as we know it.

But that's just my opinion.

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