Sam M. sends along an interesting story from the Hollywood Reporter. Excerpt:

Church groups are seeking to take over entire theaters for opening night screenings of Son of God, the upcoming movie about the life of Jesus Christ.

Various religious organizations throughout the country have been buying out screens and distributing tickets to groups of thousands of people for “Theater Take-Overs” on Thursday, Feb. 27, the night before the film’s officially released, according to production company Lightworkers Media.

Crossroads Church in Cincinnati is bringing thousands of people to a Cinemark theater, where Son of God will be showing on 13 screens at the same time.

Sam asks:

People voting with their dollars for overtly Christian art?

Or the beginning of a secular bubble and “aesthetic closure”?

Flannery O’Connor didn’t have her diocese buying 20,000 copies of her books and assigning them to parishioners.

At the same time, is the playing field so tilted that this is necessary and useful?

I dunno. Does this help bud more O’Connors or more Veggie Tales?

Well, I love Veggie Tales, and think it’s first-rate children’s programming, but I see his point. Sam is asking if this helps the cause of Christians creating art that can stand on its own, or if it rather contributes to the problem of Christians making substandard art that appeals only to believers, who set aside their aesthetic judgment for the sake of message.

First off, after having seen that trailer above, unless the reviews are bad, I’m definitely going to see this film. It looks like it has professional production standards. The trailer creates within me a desire to see the movie, and I’m someone who is reflexively allergic to any movies that come with a “Christian” label. I’ve been burned so often in the past that I’ve come to expect that people marketing a movie by playing up its Christian status are trying to appeal to my faith to sell me on the second rate. I don’t know to what extent you can bank on a trailer, but the signal this particular one sends to me is positive.

I get Sam’s concern about the buy-out-the-theaters plan, and think it’s valid. If Cosmo Spacely publishes his autobiography, and Spacely Sprockets buys out the first print run to distribute copies to its employees, putting the autobiography onto the best-seller list, that has clearly distorted the market. The Legionaries of Christ, the Catholic religious order, was accused of doing this kind of thing with the autobiography of its now-disgraced founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel.

That said, I have no problem in principle with churches doing this for the Son Of God film. Many people may not realize that major studios do this all the time for their movies. They call them “word of mouth” screenings. About half of the movies I saw as a professional film critic were in advance word of mouth screenings. Critics saw the film with preview audiences, usually people who were there because they had won free tickets in radio station giveaways. The studios will have bought out the theater for those screenings. The idea is to show audiences a film a couple of weeks before its release, so they will go tell all their friends about it, and increase paid audience turnout. The only difference between that and what these churches are doing is that they are buying out the theaters after release.

There are so very many obstacles to a film or book finding an audience. The quality of the film or book is only one factor, though obviously a prime factor. The publisher of The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming sent out review copies of the book to any journalist who asked for one (and many who did not), hoping that the journalists would take an interest in the book, and tell others about it if he or she found it to be a worthwhile book. Publishers (and film studios) look for every possible opportunity to get their books and movies in front of audiences — and that includes a strategic giveaway of the product. When Little Way came out, you could download the first chapter for free. None of this guarantees the success of the book or film; Little Way was only briefly on the bestseller list, despite the very best efforts of my publisher; perhaps the book wasn’t that good, or perhaps the lack of broadcast media attention hurt its prospects. There are no guarantees. The best PR campaign cannot save a bad film. The point is, the playing field is so tilted against any book or movie that doesn’t come with a built-in audience (e.g., a Stephen King novel, or a movie from a popular comics franchise), that marketing stunts like this can be easily understood. Or should be.

My guess is that the pastors doing this have seen the film and think it’s so good that they want as many eyes in front of it as possible at the outset, to help build word of mouth. That’s fair. Ultimately, though, Son Of God will have to stand on its own. If I were a pastor and thought this was a second-rate movie, I would not have put my reputation and my congregation’s resources on the line to have backed something simply because it was produced by “our” side. It will be clear soon enough if that’s what these pastors have done.

Believe me, I think Flannery O’Connor would have been thrilled had dioceses bought copies of her book to distribute to their congregations. No one who makes her living from selling books can possibly object to selling books to anybody, for anything, or to favorable publicity. Unless you’re Jonathan Franzen. Don’t be Jonathan Franzen.