Emphasis on family films is heartening

Is Hollywood getting religion?

So I wondered after seeing a pre-screening of "The Nativity Story," the film coming out Dec. 1 about the birth of Jesus.

The movie, from New Line Cinema, is a straightforward and compelling drama recounting the story of the birth of Christ that clearly portrays him as, well, the Son of God. Now, that's no small wonder itself considering it comes from a major studio that brought us fare like "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

A professing Christian screenwriter, Mike Rich — think: "The Rookie" — wrote the screenplay. Anyway, as Time magazine recounted in a recent article called "Hooray for Holy-wood," Hollywood seems to be discovering, or rediscovering, that faith works. Or at least it sells.

"One Night With the King," the story of the Biblical Esther (and produced by professing Christian Matt Crouch) opened in October in 900 theaters and had cameos by Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole. Disney's Christian allegory "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was a hit last Christmas season. The new FoxFaith, a division of 20 Century Fox, soon will be releasing about "half a dozen Christian-theme films a year" said Time. Lions Gate and Sony also are also developing movies with overtly spiritual or religious themes.

As Charlie Nelson, formerly with Disney and now with Grace Hill Media — a firm that markets films to religious and pro-family audiences — told me, Hollywood is finally getting that it makes sense to produce films to which people can take whole families, not just a spouse or a date. There is strength, or at least money, in numbers. And so it's no accident, Nelson explained, movies are increasingly "PG," as opposed to "R," rated.

Whether the movie is overtly Christian or not, I love it when I can take all four of my kids (the youngest of whom is 5) to a film and just not cringe. If the film has something edifying to offer, I may even throw in some popcorn. From "Cars," to "Ice Age" to "RV," that seems to be becoming more and more possible.

Of course, Hollywood is just responding to the market. What's interesting to me is, well, the market. In part I agree with popular film critic and radio talk show host Michael Medved, who says that Hollywood's overtly liberal politics turned off moviegoers to the point that in 2004 and 2005 there was a huge drop-off at the box office. But I'm betting the largest reason for the drop was more subtle than Michael Moore being the darling of Hollywood; I think it's that, for too long, Hollywood has lived in its own world, both literally and figuratively, and just wasn't giving the typical American family a whole lot that it could relate to.