Hollywood Shifts Towards Christian Themed Films

After the box office success of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," the popularity of the movie did not go ignored by Hollywood.

Achieving success in both the Christian and secular markets, "The Passion," experts say, will drive an ongoing move toward the production of "moral movies."

"Movieguide" Publisher and chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission Ted Baehr said, "What this will mean for the future is that we are going to continue to get more moral movies, more Christian movies and more family movies at the box office."

He went on to say that movies with strong Christian worldviews have done better at the box office than other movie in the past five years. "Hollywood has discovered that up to 165 million people go to church each week."

While smaller-budget Christian films will continue to be on the Christian market, larger studios are now looking for scripts with strong Christian themes as the trend shifts towards producing movies with gospel content.