Hollywood’s Next Big Thing: Religion
And then there are the renewals of such ratings-busting shows as GSN’s “The American Bible Challenge,” back for a third season, and TLC’s announcement that not only will its franchise, “Breaking Amish: LA,” return, but there will be a reunion event as well. Add to that list ongoing reality shows such as “Preacher’s Daughters” and the list just keeps growing.
“We are certainly in the midst of a rush of interest in faith-based shows,” says Martha Williamson, creator and producer of the CBS hit “Touched By An Angel,” which ran from 1994 to 2003.
The deluge of religious programming suggests that a decade after Mel Gibson parlayed the self-financed “Passion of the Christ” into a half-billion dollar box office blockbuster, Hollywood is finally figuring out how to turn the Bible into big bucks. The revival, after all, is no spiritual awakening. Some 78 percent of Americans say they are Christian, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center’s Project on Religion and Public Life, and the Bible provides the sort of epic storytelling that Hollywood is thirsting for, making a religious comeback, if anything, overdue.
The Bible was big in early Hollywood (think Cecil B. DeMille, “King of Kings,” “The Ten Commandments,” “Ben-Hur,” and more). But its return, some say, merely underscores that Hollywood – amid its countless remakes and sequels – continues to have difficulty coming up with compelling new stories.
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