Hollywood Marketing Films Through Churches

An almost interesting item about how Christians have become yet another entertainment "niche" for giant corporations to lob promotions dollars at. More interesting was this bit in Hollywood Marketing Films Through Churches ...

Disney is counting on Christian audiences to boost its "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

The film, based on the C.S. Lewis book, is a big-budget fantasy epic and the first in a series Disney hopes will rival the popularity of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Some Christians interpret the book — a staple of children's literature — as an allegory in which the hero, the lion Aslan, represents Jesus Christ. (emphasis mine)

wuh? "some Christians??" .... erm ... you mean, like the author??

And then this little part ...

"As good business people, we'd be silly not to tap into every fan of the book and hope they will become a fan of the movie," said Disney's Rice. "We don't believe we're making a Christian movie. We believe we're following the story of the book faithfully and allowing everyone to interpret it how they want depending on how they've connected to the book."

Now, I'm not going to call anyone out for aggressively promoting an entertainment product. Everyone has the right to try to make a few hundred million bucks. However ... "we don't believe we're making a Christian movie???" ... then why did you buy the rights to a Christian book?

The good news is ... even the agnostic Peter Jackson couldn't remove the powerful Christian symbolism from the Lord of the Rings, and Disney won't be able to secularize a wonderful tale like Narnia (which has even more overt and purposeful Christian themes), no matter how hard they try. Aslan is Christ. Get over it, people. Of course, they might succeed in making a lousy movie, but we'll see.