By Gavin Boyle
Jonathan Roumie discussed how Christian entertainment cannot rely on its genre to pull viewers, rather it must match the quality of Hollywood to have a long-lasting impact.
“At the end of the day, it still has to be about the work. The work cannot suffer. The quality cannot suffer. The level of artistry and commitment that all of us make on this show has to be as good or better than Hollywood,” Roumie said.
“It has to be because that’s how this revolution of cinema and media is actually happening, because of guys like Dallas [Jenkins] and Jon Erwin, who have committed a level of professionalism and craftsmanship born out of a Hollywood experience that equals or surpasses it with the message that nobody can deny,” he continued.
Like Roumie said, faith-based media has seen a resurgence in recent years as dozens of high-quality projects have given it the credibility it lacked when it was viewed as “cheesy.” At the same time, many actors and executives in the industry have decided to represent their faith and leave secular projects, which has further improved the quality of the faith-based shows and movies.
“The more people that come out and watch this content…that means [studios] say, ‘Oh, there’s an audience here.’ And more filmmakers, more actors, and more money flows make better content,” Pureflix CEO Michael Scott said in 2023. “I think as long as the audience wants it and supports us, it will continue to get better and better.”
This has proven to be the case as major studios start eyeing faith-based content, like Amazon who produced HOUSE OF DAVID along with Erwin’s The Wonder Project. Furthermore, Amazon did not try to secularize the show and fully supported Erwin making it Biblically sound.
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“Our goal at The Wonder Project is to tell stories that restore faith in things worth believing in, and to do this at scale,” explained The Wonder Project executive Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten. “We’ve been blown away by Amazon’s commitment to help us do this – both through the significant resources they are dedicating and their trust in us to tell these stories authentically to our audience.”
“The goal of what we do is to get people to say, ‘Is that in the Bible?’…and to draw people back to the book,” Erwin later added. “It’s like these shows, hopefully in their purest form of gigantic billboards say, ‘Go to the sword.’ I love that.”
As Christian media finds revitalized support in the entertainment industry, it is more important than ever that those working on it focus on the quality, rather than allowing it to slip and riding on the laurel’s of success found by their predecessors.
Read Next: Faith-Based Hit HOUSE OF DAVID Is No. 1 in US: ‘All Glory to God’
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