admin @ Thu, 2006-09-21 08:00
It wasn't from a critic, however, or even a person. It was from the Dove Foundation, a Grand Rapids, Mich., non-profit with Christian roots, whose ties to Hollywood are growing so tight these days that its opinion can send a movie back to the editing room before release.
While mainstream movie critics are widely believed to have dwindling sway over audiences, Hollywood is courting a new group of reviewers, ones who count the ``F-bombs'' in a picture and alert their constituencies to genitalia jokes and gay characters.
With the phenomenal success of ``The Passion of the Christ'' and ``The Chronicles of Narnia,'' Hollywood is targeting these commentators, who, they've learned, can deliver a box-office bump.
Traditional movie critics have been restricted from a record number of advance screenings this year, among them New Line Cinema's ``Snakes on a Plane.'' And as the films that critics have panned, such as ``Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,'' break box-office records, studio executives and filmmakers can't resist lambasting critics as out of touch with the mainstream.
A good review from the faith and family community, on the other hand, can save an otherwise forgettable film and even rally large enough crowds to make a hit. The Sony film ``RV,'' with Robin Williams, might have bombed if it had been up to critics. Instead, after a targeted campaign by faith-based marketing firm Grace Hill Media, the picture has earned a respectable $71 million since its April release.
Paramount Pictures' August release of the animated feature ``Barnyard: The Original Party Animals'' -- which Ty Burr in the Boston Globe called ``manic, maudlin and borderline creepy'' -- has earned $67 million after another Grace Hill campaign.
By contrast, Warner Bros.' ``Ant Bully,'' which was released a week earlier and did not have a faith-based push, just some good reviews by mainstream critics (the Washington Post called it ``an epic adventure'') has earned just $27 million.
For Judy Olson, a mother in Madison, Wis., the opinions of movie critics aren't relevant. Instead, she consults Focus on the Family's Pluggedinonline.com, which gets 900,000 visits a month, and the Dove Foundation's Dove.org before she decides what she and her 7-year-old son will see.
``When it comes to a family film, it's far more important to me that our family values aren't going to be contradicted and that my son's not going to see something I will regret having exposed him to,'' she says.
New Line Cinema's ``The Nativity Story,'' about Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem, due out in December, is the latest film created specifically to appeal to these groups. According to Ric Olsen, lead pastor of the Beacon, an Anaheim church, the studio hosted a teleconference with pastors from all over the United States earlier this month to gather feedback on the script. (New Line would not comment on the marketing of the film.) Clips of the film were shown at the Christian Products Expo in Nashville, Tenn., according to Jonathan Bock, founder and president of Grace Hill Media.
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