Your Church and Hollywood
I had an interesting conversation with the vice president of sales and marketing at Five & Two Pictures. They are a Christian film company that is trying a new business model that bypasses Hollywood distributors and embraces a concept that resonates with today’s attitudes of viral marketing and social networking.
Put simply, they have decided they don’t want to put out Christian films and then have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hollywood just to get their movies in theaters. Instead, they are calling on local churches to sponsor the movie into local theaters–not just as an outreach, but as a fundraiser! As the proceeds come in from the theaters, the churches get paid back from the proceeds…plus 15% of the excess profit. They figure this way churches are helping get good movies in the theater, knocking another movie that isn’t so wholesome off the screen, and making money for their ministries in the process.
Right now they’re promoting The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry, which they’d like to see in theaters nationwide starting September 18. It costs $2000 to get the movie in your local theater for a week, and somewhere around 600 paid moviegoers is the break-even point for churches to get the full amount back. If more people show up, you get extra income to put back into ministry.
It’s an interesting concept. The main question would seem to be whether you think the quality of the movies they offer are worthwhile and likely to attract people to watch. The best way to judge that is to go to their site and check it out for yourself!
