A new three-year study of the Top 25 movies released in 2006-2008 earning the most money overseas shows that international moviegoers prefer clean movies with strong or very strong Christian, moral and/or redemptive content and values.

This study is significant because it matches our annual study of the Top 25 Movies at the Box Office in America and Canada and the top home video sales annually, and because Hollywood now makes more money overseas than it does in the United States.

The Movieguide® study found that 20 of the Top 25 movies overseas in 2006-2008, or 80%, contained strong or very strong Christian, moral, redemptive, and even biblical content, earning $8.39 billion out of $10.59 billion total, or 79.2% of the money among the Top 25.

That’s an average of $419.5 million per movie!

A couple of the best examples are “Spider-Man 3″ and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” both of which actually made it into the Top 10 movies overseas in 2006-2008.

“Spider-Man 3″ has a very strong Christian worldview with very strong redemptive themes, where the hero goes in repentance to the foot of the Cross to shed his sins. The new “Indiana Jones” movie shows the hero rejecting the evil tyranny and mind control of Communism and ends with a brief church wedding scene that quotes the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 19 and Verse 24 of Chapter Two of the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament!

None of the Top 25 movies overseas in 2006 to 2008 were R-rated, but nine of them were rated G or PG. Also, only three of the Top 25 had more than 25 obscenities and profanities, only three had any depicted sexual content, only two had any sexual nudity in them, only four had any very strong action violence, only five (20%) had any drug references, and only 10, or 40%, had any scenes of drunkenness or alcohol abuse.

Moviegoers clearly prefer clean movies with strong Christian, moral, biblical, and redemptive content. They want good to triumph over evil and justice to prevail. They want to be inspired.

The following chart lists the kind and percent of moral, theological and political content Movieguide® found in these Top 25 Movies:

Top 25 Movies at the Overseas Box Office, 2006-2008 

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Besides “Spider-Man 3″ and the “Indiana Jones” movie, the study also included such top movie releases in 2006, 2007 and 2008 as “The Dark Knight,” “I Am Legend” (which had a several Christian worldview), “Wall-E” (which had a very strong redemptive Christian worldview focusing on a heroic example of the Christian definition of love), “Ice Age: The Meltdown,” “Prince Caspian” (based on a Christian novel), “Iron Man,” “Transformers,” and the last two “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies (both of which contained overt Christian references at the center of an ultimately redemptive plot).

A Movieguide® study of the Top 25 movies overseas in 2005, 2006 and 2007 showed very similar results to the new three-year study.

This past Friday, my wife and I picked up the kids from their Catholic grade school in Alexandria, Virginia.  As the two girls were being dropped at a friend’s house for the day, we decided (on the spur of the moment) to surprise the boy with a trip to the movies.  We figured “Land of the Lost” would be harmless enough for an eleven-year-old boy and might provide a few laughs for the adults.

All you need to know is that I was compelled to ask, “What the heck is this rated?” within the first five minutes of the movie.  Kids, this was not your father’s “Land of the Lost.”  I might have only been about my son’s age when the Sid & Marty Krofft TV show was a Saturday morning staple 30 years ago, but I am 100% sure that I would have remembered it if one of the characters had dropped the F-Bomb. 

For 45 minutes, we sat and squirmed and waited for the laughs to come.  Instead, we were treated to the little ape man Chaka repeatedly fondling the heroine’s breasts, the dirty sidekick getting hot over two Slestaks of unknown gender preparing to, in his words, “tap that ass,” an extended homoerotic drug scene involving the two male leads and Chaka, and our hero Will Ferrell letting loose with the aforementioned F-Bomb as in “F#!k you, Chaka.”  By the way, the movie is rated PG-13.  My wife and I were shocked that for the sheer abundance of sexual references, filthy language and breast fondling, it didn’t merit a solid R from the MPAA.

As the parents, we were faced with a dilemma — how best to handle this delicate situation.  The theater was packed with teenagers.  Our son must have already felt a little embarrassed to arrive with Mom and Dad.  To get up and leave might have been worse than grinding it out.  I know some of you more perfect parents are thinking, “What dilemma? I’d have stormed out at the first dirty word!”  But I’ll hazard a guess that you also would not have been thinking that at 11 years old, your kids are hearing and seeing worse on the school bus.  And since we’ve established that our kids (like their parents before them) hear it on the bus or in the cafeteria or in the dugout, then you must accept the possibility that your kids have uttered a few of these choice words themselves. It’s what they think about it all that counts.  That’s where the parenting comes in.

At any rate, I kept a close eye on my boy.  He’s a smart kid.  We talk about these things at home.  We talk about language and why gentlemen don’t use dirty language in mixed company or in front of children.  I tell him that on occasion, I’ve let loose with a few choice words, but that I strive to use it sparingly.  He’s even asked about sex and I’ve been honest about it.  Unsurprisingly, he’s never dissolved into a pile of dust.  He just feels more comfortable talking to us about whatever is on his mind.

So, at about the 45 minute mark in the movie, he turned to me and said, “We don’t have to stay for any more of this.”

I replied, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, this is awful,” he said.

So we got up and walked out.  My wife told me to go and ask for a refund.  I told her that it was my fault for not checking the reviews, not the theater’s for not posting a warning.

I learned two valuable lessons that were well worth the $28.00.  First, always read the reviews no matter how innocent a movie may seem from the ads, previews or ratings.  Second, my son is a very smart boy.

As we were walking out he turned to us and said, “That was dirty, awful and disrespectful to women. It was disrespectful to Mom.”

Good kid, my son. Smarter than his father.

As soon as I got home, I fished out the newspaper and found the reviews.  For once, the reviews were as bad as the movie.  I also found out that because my son had the maturity to walk out, we missed being treated to the sight of Will Ferrell being eaten by a T-Rex and subsequently excreted by said dinosaur.  I owe the boy big time.

Note to Hollywood, most parents will not be as forgiving as I am.  I only hope that most eleven-year olds would have the guts to get up and walk out on the crap that Hollywood has grown accustomed to shoveling at them.

Mark Corallo is a partner in Corallo Comstock, Inc, a public relations firm based in Alexandria, Virginia.