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So…I was faced with a few realities. Hollywood wanted more Christian films. As a Christian, I wanted more Christian films that were actually watchable. I’d publicly and condescendingly bemoaned the fact that Christian films usually weren’t good. I’m a Christian. I’m a filmmaker.

So I decided to make a Christian film. I’d made a few films already, and all of them had a faith-based perspective, but they hadn’t been all-out, crowd-pleasing, explicitly Christian films geared towards the church crowd. It wasn’t really what I came to Hollywood to do. But I figured that part of being a successful filmmaker was being a smart businessman, and not only that, I genuinely wanted to make a Christian film that was GOOD. Obviously, there’s somewhat of an artistic ceiling when you’re working within the constraints of a particular genre, not to mention working with a very low budget, but that doesn’t mean one can’t push the limits of those constraints and succeed artistically.

So I took a shot. I partnered with a company (Pure Flix) that specializes in films for the church market in a particularly cost-effective way, came aboard a project they were developing that fit my sensibility, and went to work. Let me take you through the issues faced when doing a Christian film intended to make money, serve a higher spiritual purpose, and succeed artistically.

First, the requirements. To qualify as a film that will appeal to the CORE Christian church crowd (those who don’t see too many movies because of the crassness of Hollywood), there are a few rules that you really shouldn’t ever break. One, it must be clean. NO rough language, and that includes the lesser ones like the d-word, h-word, and crass locker room phrases (I’m holding to these rules even in this article, in case it gets reprinted in Christian circles or if my Mom reads it). Women shouldn’t be dressed provocatively, and there can be zero lustful moments–even kissing should be tame (tongues were made for tasting communion bread and juice) and preferably limited to married Christian couples. Two, bad behavior must be presented as if it is indeed bad behavior, with consequences. Three, there should be at least one scene where the message of “the Gospel” is presented in some way, preferably by showing a character come to salvation or faith.

This is not to say that these audiences don’t enjoy films that don’t hold to these rules, but if it’s marketed as a “Christian” film, to be sold in Christian bookstores or played in church, it better live up to these standards.

Second, the limits. It’s extraordinarily difficult in today’s Hollywood to make money on a film unless it’s a big budget studio film. Movies like Paranormal Activity are miraculous and even more rare than they used to be. Independent films have largely been squeezed out of the marketplace, so to reduce risk, one needs to aim for as low a budget as possible. We had a very, very low budget by Hollywood standards and only 15 days to shoot the film, which is borderline psycho. The average Hollywood film has three times that.

With these boundaries, what am I hoping to achieve, and what can I bring to the table that might allow me to make a film that is actually good? And even though I understand that the target audience is the Christian market, I’m convinced that everyone likes a good movie, Christian or not. A good movie isn’t preachy or false, and unfortunately, most Christian films are both. I hope to be neither, and if I can achieve that, maybe the film can be good on its own merits with the “Christian” factor being a bonus, and maybe even have mainstream appeal.

To do this, we had to get a good script that presents the Christian experience with the wit and groundedness that most Christian films lack. Check. Veteran screenwriters Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman delivered a charming, compelling script that I was genuinely excited about, and the Christian stuff was interesting and organic to the story. This helped in getting good actors, which is important step #2–get solid actors who can portray this delicate material with audience-friendly charm, but also with realism, knowing you can’t afford Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie but hoping you can find recognizable names who are looking for good material. Check. Kevin Sorbo, Kristy Swanson, John Ratzenberger, and up-and-coming Disney star Debby Ryan all loved the script. They weren’t cheap, but for an independent film, actors with their experience and charm were worth it, and they’ll also help tremendously when we’re out there selling the film.

Did I succeed? Don’t know yet, we’re still in post-production. But I documented my attempt and tried to make it as educational as possible. Every day on set, and once every couple weeks during post-production, I’ve filmed a “diary” along with some behind the scenes footage. I’ll continue to film these diaries all the way through the release of the film. If the film succeeds, this can perhaps be a ”how-to” guide on how to do it again; if it fails, then it’ll at least be an exhibit of what to avoid (like writing an article about bad Christian films before making one). I tried to gear the videos to appeal to all levels of film interest or experience, so if some moments feel too basic to you, I apologize, but for the most part, it’s just an honest look at the film-making process. I discuss the different jobs on a set; explain how things come together for the shoot and editing, acknowledge the bad days, and as we get into the marketing, I’ll show how a film is publicized and go behind the scenes of our attempts to sell the film to as many people as possible.

All the videos, pictures, and text updates are at What If… The Production Blog, starting in order from the bottom up. Warts and all.

Apparently, this makes me a racist.

You see, Michael Oher happens to be black, and the Tuohys happen to be white. I actually think that’s pretty cool, especially because they live in Tennessee, and what gets us farther from the evil days of segregation than an increased number of mixed-race families? One would assume that liberals especially would be excited about that, right?

Not so fast. The other day, after we saw the trailer again (we get choked up every single time), I casually mentioned that it wouldn’t shock me if some critics complained that the movie was a “typical white person saves a black person” story. Call it a hunch. I emailed a smart writer friend and mentioned that I’d like to write an article predicting the coming backlash, and he said I might want to reconsider because I could look “strident” if I was wrong. My immediate reaction was one of indignance as I thought angrily to myself, “What does ’strident’ mean?”

Not wanting to look “harsh, grating, or discordant,” I did some quick research and found that my article could no longer be a prediction, as the backlash has already started. I did a search for The Blind Side, criticism,” and five of the first ten items were blogs or articles about the racist undertones of the TRAILER. I saw the terms “racist” and “paternalistic” in nearly every article. In the Huffington Post, Mark Blankenship (whose bio mentions the NY Times, Variety, and Village Voice as outlets for his writing–shocking) wrote “The song (in the trailer) is called ‘How to Save a Life,’ a title that suggests the trailer’s breathtaking paternalism.”

Here is the definition of paternalistic: A policy or practice of treating or governing people in a fatherly manner, especially by providing for their needs without giving them rights or responsibilities. (emphasis added)

Wow.

Seeing as how these critics no doubt would consider health care, food, clothing, and shelter to be RIGHTS, and the trailer shows the Tuohys providing these for Michael, calling it “paternalistic” would seem to be a contradiction, hm? They also provided him with a top-notch private high school education and helped him go from having a GPA under 1.0 to making the dean’s list at a Division I college. He’s now a millionaire because of their efforts. No rights or responsibilities? Really?

Of course, if a movie came out showing white people in the government providing all this for Michael, it’d be a triumph of social justice, but a movie showing rich white people doing it on their own is “paternalistic” or a reinforcement of racist undertones in film. Food stamps? Good. Praying over a massive Thanksgiving meal in a huge dining room? Paternalistic.

The title of Blankenship’s piece is, “Should We Want Movies Like The Blind Side?” Think about that question. My first response would be:

It’s. A. True. Story.

Because art is supposed to reflect life, and life is supposed to be inspired by art, the question is basically, “should we want stories like this?” Do we want to see stories about homeless kids being adopted by strong nuclear families and steered towards success? Gee, I don’t know.

If you want to make the issue about race, let’s consider that a disproportionate number of black children are poor, in foster care, living with neither biological parent; supervised by a child welfare agency; or living with a single parent. Over 70% of black kids are born out of wedlock. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that we would want some of those kids adopted? Who cares what color the adoptive parents are, and if you do care, as critics of the film obviously do, doesn’t that make YOU the racist?

With “The Blind Side,” one cannot separate art from life. It’s a true story. Michael Oher was black, the Tuohys were white. Michael Oher was poor and homeless, the Tuohys were rich and lived in a huge house. Michael Oher repeated 1st and 2nd grade and attended 11 different schools in nine years; the Tuohy kids attended private schools their whole lives. Michael Oher’s mom was a crack addict, his father absentee, ultimately murdered when Michael was a high school senior. Now he has a mother and a father who not only didn’t abandon him, but who cared enough about him to take him into their home and family when he was a 16-year old, 6 ft. 4 in, 300 pound stranger. It’s all true. If the movie is racist or paternalistic or stereotypical or cliched or sappy for depicting it, then so is the story itself.

Would it have been a better, less paternalistic story if a family from his black neighborhood had taken him in? We’ll never know. Would it have been better if Gil Netter and 20th-Century Fox, in an effort to avoid racism or paternalism, resisted making this film because the Tuohys happened to be white, or perhaps changed the story to make it a white kid?

Thankfully, we’ll never know that either.

As it turns out, Joe Wilson isn’t the only inappropriate interrupter of the last week. If you haven’t seen Kanye West’s shocking-only-to-people-who-have-never-seen-or-heard-Kanye-West-perform-or-say-words outburst at the normally classy and restrained MTV Video Music Awards, take 90 seconds and watch the train wreck. I don’t want to say it was awkward, but I haven’t seen a performer arouse that many embarrassed faces since…well, since Kanye West did the exact same thing at the European VMAs in 2007, which at the time was the most awkward TV moment since Kanye West hijacked a Katrina charity TV show to rant that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.“

A lot of people are focusing on what a jackass he was (UPDATE: Apparently President Obama actually used the word “jackass” to describe him, which I just found out, and which gives the President a couple bonus points in my book), but that’s too easy. I’m choosing to focus on the bright side for a few moments before I **SPOILER ALERT** play the race card. The bright side inspired my opening paragraph, which was sincere. Think about what happened in this moment, because it’s not something you’ll see too often in entertainment.

Hip people don’t like country music. They don’t like the performers or the fans unless a performer alienates its fans by saying something hip, like the Dixie Chicks. Hip people don’t like innocence unless it’s portrayed in some sort of ironic way, like a vixen in a school girl uniform, or a young child with a knife behind its back. Hip people do like controversy and people who push the envelope, which is why they liked the “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl. They loved the idea that a bunch of heartland families recoiled in shock as something traditionally innocent  like the Super Bowl was invaded by hipness.

MTV is for hip people.

But hipness took a hit at the VMAs, as normally hip people saw its ugly side. Wide-eyed heartland girl Taylor Swift was expressing her shock at receiving her award, acknowledging that as a country singer she wasn’t a favorite to win on MTV, when Kanye West literally grabbed the mic from her and tried to remind everyone that the hip choice wasn’t made. A few people cheered (as MTV teens are wont to do whenever a person holding a mic emits sound), but most people booed or acted shocked. After Kanye walked off the stage, the crowd started to cheer Taylor even more. Kanye, an MTV icon, was kicked out. Later, Beyonce won a big award and invited Taylor back onstage to finish her speech. Classy move. And the response to the moment has been overwhelmingly negative towards Kanye and positive towards Taylor. This can only help her albums and hurt his, which is cool.

I consider it a nice moment. Period. Good triumphed over bad.

No need to make this about race.

Buuuutttt… since in the last week conservatives have been accused of being racist by Maureen Dowd (referring to Joe Wilson), Bill Maher (referring to Drudge), and Acorn (referring to Fox for showing video of black people talking), I thought I’d take a moment to ask a few hypothetical questions. To be clear–I’m NOT saying that Kanye West is a racist, I just have a few questions.

Consider:

What would the reaction have been if Beyonce had won the award and Toby Keith had rushed the stage, grabbed the mic out of her hands, and yelled to the crowd that Taylor Swift should have won?

If this scene had played out as fiction in a feature film, how would the media elite have reacted to a scene perpetuating the stereotype of a black man aggressively grabbing something from the hands of a southern white girl?

Do you think we’ll be seeing any columns from Maureen Dowd or Entertainment Weekly pointing out racial undertones in the moment, mentioning Kanye’s history of discussing race or pointing out that the times he’s rudely interrupted a televised moment have all involved white people? Such as when he lost the Best New Artist award to, as he called her, “Redneck Woman” Gretchen Wilson, and stormed out of the American Music Awards in protest? 

When do you think we’ll hear from Gloria Steinem or Gloria Allred defending Taylor as a victim of male domination (especially since MTV didn’t let her finish her speech because Kanye had caused her to run out of time), mentioning the history of female treatment in hip hop music?

Will the Southern Defense Coalition or the White Anti-Defamation League be making any statements?

Just curious…

Here are a few of the President’s statements with a response:

“If companies don’t do right by their workers and offer them insurance…”

This comment drives me insane. Why is offering health benefits “doing right,” but not offering them “doing wrong?” Isn’t the fact that the company even hired them in the first place “doing them right?” Employees know what they’re getting when they get a job, and if they demand health coverage as part of their employment, they can go work for someone else if their boss doesn’t offer it to them. Purchasing health coverage for your employees is extraordinarily expensive; sometimes simply hiring the person is all an employer can afford.

And, by the way, offering health care to employees wasn’t always the norm. But eventually it became part of a job offer–”Instead of paying you $60,000 and you paying $10K a year for your health coverage, I’ll pay you $50,000 a year and give you health coverage, and then you won’t be taxed for that $10K.” It’s a privilege, a bonus, a cool thing…it’s not a RIGHT, and not offering it isn’t necessarily “doing wrong.”

“We will require everyone to get health insurance, just like many states force you to have auto insurance.”

Wow. He has big stones to say something like this. For one thing, the reason you’re forced to have auto insurance is to cover OTHERS, not yourself. You’re driving a big dangerous machine, and if you injure someone with it, you better have a way to guarantee payment. For another, auto insurance can be purchased across state lines, so you have true competition. Finally, and most importantly, you’re not forced to drive a car! So if you don’t own a car, you don’t have to get auto insurance!

What a horrible metaphor.

One other thing about forcing people to have health insurance; this, like forcing insurance companies to cover all this preventative stuff, and forcing people to participate in it, is such a nanny state – big brother mentality. Sure, it’s smart for people to be more preventative, but do we want government forcing it on us? Is this freedom? What’s next? Forcing people to work out three times a week and banning sugar? They’re already banning the sale of trans-fats in California and New York and are trying to legally force restaurants to put calorie information on the friggin’ menu.

Forcing people to purchase health insurance is lunacy (not to mention possibly unconstitutional), especially considering one of his reasons–”because when someone goes to the emergency room without insurance, we all have to pay for it.” Why is that? Why can’t they get billed? Why shouldn’t they be expected to pay for the cost of being treated? And if they literally can’t afford it because they never got insurance (low cost, high-deductible insurance that covers only big emergencies, like with auto insurance), there are charities/churches/private groups. And if those are unable, then there are extreme and rare cases in which the state can provide a safety net (like with welfare). But that should be the last resort, not policy.

“According to the Congressional Budget Office, only 5% of Americans will sign up for the public option.”

Nice little stat there, except he left out two things: One, only 15% of Americans don’t have insurance anyway (notice how he lowered the number of uninsured in this speech from 45 million to “over 30 million,” because he realized that the 45 million figure included illegal immigrants?), so a better way to say it would have been, “one in three uninsured will sign up for the government option.  Two, the Congressional Budget Office he quoted is the same group saying his plan will operate at a deficit, which he denies. So why does he trust the CBO for the stat above?

“Public universities don’t hurt private colleges, so public insurance won’t hurt private insurance” (paraphrase).

Hmm. Well, that’s partly true, except the difference is that there are thousands of different public universities to choose from, which means they compete with each other, whereas President Obama’s proposing one government plan. Also, most public universities are state run and funded, not nationally run and funded. And again…NO ONE’S FORCING ANYONE TO GO TO COLLEGE, whereas President Obama wants to force you to have insurance, so again, it’s a crappy metaphor.

“You shouldn’t be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition.”

Then why ever get insurance in the first place? Oh, never mind, he’s going to force you to do it. Forgot that part.

“It will be against the law for an insurance company to drop you just because you get sick.”

It already is. Let me repeat that. It already is. As long as you make timely payments, it’s against the law for an insurance company to simply drop you because you got sick.

To close, President Obama has been making some very interesting statements about Medicare. I’ve been attacking Medicare in health care debates for awhile. I’ve used it as an example of a poorly run government program that should scare us from wanting government to have a bigger role (along with FEMA, DMV, post office, etc.). And my liberal friends usually respond by defending Medicare, pointing out its high approval ratings and efficiency. Well, I appreciated President Obama tonight acknowledging that Medicare is a problem, because he said that one of the biggest ways the government option would be paid for is with the elimination of waste and fraud in Medicare.

Get that?

We’re going to pay for this new big government program by eliminating all the mess and mistakes from the other one. Yes, the other program has wasted HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, enough to nearly pay for this new program, but trust me…we’ll do this one better.

President Obama said something similar about the post office, another government program we on the right attack. He said, “Government competition hasn’t hurt FedEx and UPS; in fact, it’s the post office that usually has the problems.” Um…so this is supposed to give us confidence in your new government program?

Not all President Obama said was bad. And of course, the beginnings and ends of his speeches are always great, and I’m guessing support for him and the plan will go up in the next week based on this speech. But most likely it’ll return to earth in a couple weeks, and we’ll be back where we started.

These trends beg a few questions. What took Hollywood so long to discover the Christian market? Why can’t they replicate even half the success of “The Passion?” And when Christians make up over half the population, why are faith-based films still relegated to the low-budget, straight to DVD world? The seemingly obvious answer would be that there are few Christians in Hollywood, both at the studio and creative level, but even that would raise the question of why.

I think I know the reason(s), although it’s a bit embarrassing because I happen to be a Christian evangelical. But we must face the truth, and as Dr. Phil so eloquently and charmingly puts it, “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.” The fact is, Christian movies have been pretty bad for a few decades. Yes, Hollywood had largely ignored the Christian market, but it’s not like there have been good examples for Hollywood to learn from. And now that Hollywood is actively seeking faith-based material, there’s still a lack of quality scripts and filmmakers available, with a few exceptions, and among the films that are being made in this genre, there are still more crappy ones than good ones.

There are plenty of reasons for this, but four stand out, in no particular order:

1. The Christian community abandoned Hollywood a few decades ago. Until 1968, the Catholic Church had a direct influence on what Hollywood produced with the “Production Code.” After the code was abandoned and movies became more risque, American Christians became disenfranchised with Hollywood. Over time, the distance between Hollywood and the church became greater, especially as many artists made movies that mocked or attacked the church or its traditions. Instead of trying to influence Hollywood by becoming a part of it, Christians avoided it and told their children to do the same. The only time that Hollywood heard from Christians was when boycotts occurred.

2. Even though Christians didn’t want to see evil Hollywood films or listen to evil secular music, they still wanted to see movies and listen to music like everyone else. So what were they to do if the acceptable choices from Hollywood were so few and far between? They created a Christian entertainment subculture, where Christian movies and music were made by Christians, for Christians. Christian bookstores exploded, as families could feel safe shopping in an environment where the only entertainment available was Christian-based. Now Christians had no need to communicate to Hollywood what they wanted because they could get it from Christian media providers, and the relationship between Hollywood and the Christian community became even more distant. Combine the cynicism of Christians towards Hollywood with the annoyance or ignorance of Hollywood towards Christians, and you’ve got the perfect divorce.

3. In “Christian film,” you’ve got a genre defined entirely by its message. There is nothing else like this in entertainment, other than perhaps “gay films,” but because there are so many more gay people in Hollywood than Christians, gay characters show up in mainstream films more than Christian characters do, thereby reducing the need or desire for films devoted exclusively to a gay theme. This has not happened with Christianity in film, so the “Christian film” sub-genre remains alive and growing.

The problem is that everyone knows good art should always put story and character above message. Message films are rarely exciting. So by their very nature, most Christian films aren’t going to be very good because they have to fall within certain message-based parameters. And because the Christian audience is so glad to get a “safe, redeeming, faith-based message,” even at the expense of great art, they don’t demand higher artistic standards. So aspiring filmmakers who are Christians have little need to perfect their craft, and Christian investors have little need to spend a lot of money because the message is going to be most important anyway. Add in the fact that the average heartland Christian couldn’t care less what a critic thinks–if anything, they assume they’ll feel the opposite of a movie critic–and you’ve got even less incentive for Christian filmmakers to be obsessed with quality.

To be fair, this trend isn’t exclusive to Christian entertainment. Horror films are similar in that they don’t need good reviews or higher budgets to deliver the goods to their core audience. And of course, in no genre is this more the case than porn. Even Christian movies are higher quality than porn films. Not that I would know.

4. The above points all lead to one predominant problem: young Christians aren’t encouraged or trained to become great artists. If a young Christian wants to become a filmmaker, they are often either discouraged to do so because Hollywood is so dangerous, or if they do find encouragement, they have a hard time getting proper training. There are two primary things that can foster someone becoming a better artist: one, seeing and being inspired by hundreds of great films, and two, getting a great artistic education. For better or worse, many parents won’t allow their kids to see some of the great films (because of questionable content), and many Christian kids are discouraged from attending the best film schools (also because of questionable content). This not only impacts potential filmmakers, but actors as well.

Therefore, when Hollywood starts to pursue more faith-based films and filmmakers (which they have), they find the cupboard bare. So even if and when they decide to make a faith-based film, they have a hard time finding great Christian filmmakers or actors, which affects both the film and the publicity. A name actor in an action or comic book film is willing to go to Comic-con to promote their film to film buffs and nerds; they know they need to go where the core fans are. This publicity is necessary of course. But if they starred in a faith-based or Biblical film, are they going to go to a church or a Christian convention to promote it to the core fans? Not likely.

Yes, it’s true that Hollywood should do a better job of understanding and relating to the heartland Christian audience. But at some point the Christian community needs to know its role in the problem. I’m talking to myself here, too. I’m a Christian, I’m a filmmaker. I’ve made a few films, and they were pretty good, but they weren’t good enough. I’ve got to get better. We can complain all we want about how Hollywood doesn’t reflect our values, but we lose that right if we’re not producing great projects and artists of our own.

They adjusted their marketing plan.

This was before the Left Behind movies sold a few million DVD’s and The Passion of the Christ opened to over $100 million despite being set 2000 years ago in a dead language. Now every studio in Hollywood is looking for “faith-based” projects, especially because this year’s highest-grossing independent film was Fireproof, produced by a church for about $700,000 and which grossed over $30 million. Several studios even have faith-based divisions.

So has Hollywood found religion? Hardly. While it’s certainly a good thing that the studios are finally aware that Christians exist, they still don’t understand them, nor do they really want to try very hard. To be fair, Christians as a whole don’t exactly make things easy for Hollywood, as usually the only time that Hollywood hears from the Christian community is when they complain about or boycott their product. But that’s also been true of other people groups such as blacks, gays, and lobbyists for various nationalities or causes, and Hollywood has spent considerable effort to understand them while the media has done countless stories on the lack of accurately portrayed minorities.

But if there are faith-based divisions in Hollywood, what’s the problem? The problem is the divisions themselves; they are set up to acquire already financed or partially financed films from independent Christian producers and spend as little money as possible. They will occasionally bring in a Christian publicity firm to drum up some grass roots support, but the primary strategy is to release a film cheaply and hope the core Christian audience shows up. If they do, they make a killing; if they don’t, no harm done because so little was spent in the first place.

Once in a blue moon (full disclosure—I don’t know what that means), a studio will release a big budget film that’s story was generated from the Christian community, such as Chronicles of Narnia, or…um, I can’t really think of another one. Maybe The Nativity Story, but that was a half-hearted and boring attempt to capitalize on the Passion craze. But even in the case of Narnia, they chose a film that was safe and wouldn’t feel like a faith-based film to mainstream audiences, so as not to risk turning anyone off. When Sony Universal released Brokeback Mountain, they didn’t shy away from a few explicit gay sex scenes, as that would have been compromising; one wonders if they would extend the same treatment to explicit prayer or churchy scenes in a faith-based film that had a budget above $5 million.

So the faith-based film spectrum includes explicitly churchy cheap movies on one end, safe and moderate expensive movies (albeit very few) on the other. There is no in between. Movies like Chariots of Fire, The Mission, The Apostle, or A Walk to Remember, quality films of subtle power that address in an explicit and accurate way the issues of faith that most Americans experience, just aren’t made anymore. If these films were pitched to a studio today, they would either be shuffled to the faith division, dumbed down, and made for $2 million with no stars, or they would be beefed up and done expensively but have all the faith stuff thinned out. The Mission would be called The Journey, and it wouldn’t be about a missionary preaching to a third world tribe, it would be about an environmentalist preaching to a wrong-intentioned missionary.

The result? The majority of Americans miss out on films that reflect a large segment of the populace and an important part of our life experience. 90% of Americans believe in God, but how often do we see Him discussed in a mainstream film? Over half the country goes to church on a regular basis, but how often do we see church or clergy in a mainstream film? Or any Christians at all for that matter? Most Americans pray; have you seen prayer on screen in awhile?

There’s no question that Christians need to do a better job of making films and becoming world-class filmmakers who will deserve the ear of Hollywood executives. But even when we do, we often face the fate of famous screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who recently became a Christian and is desperate to make a faith-based film. He pitched a script that executives thought was brilliant, but they didn’t want to make a “Christian film” unless it was cheap. The quality of the film matters less than which category they can fit it in to. In a vacuum, this isn’t abnormal or bad, as all entertainment is usually about marketing and finding categories. The problem in this case is that neither category is a good one.