Family Fare Comes Back

Bonanza of values-laden shows in the works.

Hollywood is more open to family entertainment than it has been for decades, and television and movie viewers already are seeing the results on their screens. Movie companies and broadcast networks searching for audiences are turning—perhaps reluctantly—to family-oriented entertainment, including the eagerly awaited CBS-TV adaptation of Catherine Marshall’s Christy.

Christians can credit cable and video competition for network television’s rediscovery of the family market, says Calvin College professor Quentin Schultze. “There’s chaos in the industry right now as to what the market is for broadcast network fare. The television industry is very open to trying just about anything to keep their losses to cable and the VCR minimal.”

Looking for a formula

“The audience will fall in love with Christy,” says producer Ken Wales of his TV series based on the best-selling book. “ ’Christy’ is a real breakthrough in terms of what we’ve seen on TV showing what a young girl’s faith can do.”

CBS will launch the weekly drama about a Christian schoolteacher in the Appalachians in January. The series will focus on Christy’s search for a purpose in her life. Wales says, “You see Christy’s faith in action by what she does, not what she preaches.”

Entertainment experts have high hopes for “Christy.” Schultze, who read the script for the premiere episode and visited the set, predicts it will be a success for CBS. Michael Medved, film critic for PBS’s “Sneak Previews,” told CHRISTIANITY TODAY, “I think ‘Christy’ is going to be a hit across the country. ‘Christy’ is going to really take off.”

“Christy” will join another network series that has garnered praise from Christian audiences, NBC’s “Against the Grain.” That show, which began airing on Fridays in September, is the story of a high-school football coach in a football-crazy Texas town.

Schultze says broadcast networks can create a niche for themselves with family entertainment such as “Christy” and “Against the Grain,” which are less likely to appear on narrowly marketed cable channels. “Obviously, it’s financially motivated, but it may end up with a good result.”

Beating the odds

The movie industry also is taking notice of the trend toward family entertainment. Wind Dancer Production Group, which produces the ABC sitcom “Home Improvement,” is developing Walter Wangerin’s short-story collection, Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace, as a motion picture. Academy Award-winning playwright Horton Foote is writing the screenplay. Wangerin’s agent, Rick Christian, says the movie will feature the book’s observations of a Midwestern boy growing up in the 1950s. Christian says, “It’s very human—profoundly human.”

Also seeking a slice of the Christian audience is The Judas Project, which tells the story of what might happen if Jesus Christ appeared for the first time today, instead of 2,000 years ago. The film, written and directed by James Barden, is being released regionally in the United States.

“In Hollywood, you hear them say if it’s not Terminator 2, it’s not a high-concept film; it’s a ‘quiet film,’ “says Christian. “I think there’s a tremendous market out there for these types of films.”

Medved is certain the market is there. “Last year 61 percent of all movies were rated R. In 1993 so far, 39 percent were rated R,” says Medved. “For the last five years, the R-rated films have had the lowest average box-office return. Now that they’ve finally reduced the number of R-rated films, that’s one of the reasons that the overall box office has gone up.”

Schultze cautions against “an overreliance on box office figures and underreliance on cable and video revenue,” which can recoup losses for a film that did poorly in theatrical release. He says family fare is back in style in part because adolescents have moved from theaters to video, a demographic shift that raises the average age of filmgoers and opens the market to “films that are less action-oriented and have more subtle themes and more sophisticated characterization.”

“It’s the best opening that the Christian community has had since the early days of television,” says Schultze, who believes Christians need to become involved in the industry, especially in writing and financing. Medved notes that evangelicals are forming actor coops and networking groups that also attract conservative Jews.

The success of projects such as “Christy” and Miz Lil could encourage Hollywood to continue its flirtation with family entertainment. “The industry is doing better partially because what they’re doing is offering more variety,” says Medved. “It seems to me that an industry that uses the slogan of freedom of choice [is] finally giving the audience some freedom of choice, and I think the audience is grateful.”

By John Zipperer.

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