Faith-Based Films: Winning a David and Goliath Battle Against Hollywood and the Leftist Establishment

Critics attacked a film about rescuing trafficked children as “QAnon propaganda,” praised a movie that sexualized 11-year-olds as daring social commentary, and labeled a film about a saint, Mother Cabrini, helping immigrants “white supremacist.” These reactions reflected a concerted effort by a cultural and political establishment determined to marginalize Christian voices.

Yet despite low budgets, limited theatrical distribution, and coordinated hostility from the press, faith-based films have emerged as some of the most financially successful movies of the past decade.

Research by film industry analyst Stephen Follows shows that Hollywood, as a whole, is barely profitable. Among major blockbusters with budgets exceeding $100 million, average profit margins remain in the single digits. Across the broader industry, the picture is no better. Roughly 51 percent of Hollywood films turn a profit, while 49 percent lose money.

The few big winners must cover the losses of nearly half the industry. Only about 11 percent of films generate returns exceeding twice their original budgets, while another 11 percent earn between 100 and 200 percent returns. The rest deliver marginal gains or outright losses.

Against this backdrop, the performance of faith-based films stands out. Sound of Freedom, produced on a $14.5 million budget, grossed $251 million worldwide. I Can Only Imagine, made for $7 million, earned $86 million, while God’s Not Dead turned a $2 million budget into $64 million. Taken together, these three films achieved an average return on investment of approximately 1,953 percent.

This pattern extends across the genre. The Passion of the Christ transformed a $30 million budget into $612 million globally and held the record as the highest-grossing R-rated film for two decades. Sound of Freedom became the 10th highest-grossing film in the United States in 2023 and the first independent post-pandemic release to surpass $100 million domestically, even out-earning Indiana Jones on its opening day.

Fireproof expanded a $500,000 budget into $33 million, and Sony’s Affirm Films label has generated roughly $520 million in theatrical revenue, exceeding total production costs by about $400 million.

By contrast, mainstream Hollywood frequently loses money on films with budgets between $60 million and $100 million. The disparity in returns between faith-based films and large studio productions exceeds 500-fold. Faith-based films have succeeded without institutional backing, large marketing budgets, or favorable press. According to Movieguide founder Dr. Ted Baehr, “Private financing often hinders Christian movies from being released in major theatrical and streaming markets.”

Marketing and distribution account for more than 60 percent of a film’s earnings, yet faith-based films typically operate with minimal marketing budgets compared to Hollywood productions that routinely spend $50 million to $150 million on promotion.

These films cannot afford Super Bowl advertisements, national television campaigns, or celebrity press tours, and they generally open on far fewer screens than major studio releases. Even relatively successful films such as The Blind (2023) debuted in only about 2,000 theaters, a fraction of a typical wide release.

A stark example of a Hollywood failure despite massive financial backing is Joker: Folie à Deux (2024). The film opened on more than 4,100 theaters domestically with a reported production budget of approximately $200 million and an estimated $100 million spent on marketing and distribution, bringing total costs to around $300 million.

Its worldwide box office totaled roughly $206 million, including about $58 million domestically, resulting in an estimated loss of $150 million to $200 million. The marketing and distribution budget alone exceeded the total production budget of every faith-based film released over the past decade.

Industry resistance has also played a role. Angel Studios CEO Neal Harmon said that attracting audiences to The Chosen in its early stages was “like pulling teeth,” explaining that many viewers associate faith-based content with being “cheesy or preachy.”

The history of Sound of Freedom illustrates these barriers. Completed in 2018, the film initially secured a distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, but after Disney acquired Fox, it was shelved for five years.

Angel Studios later acquired the rights through crowdfunding and relied on a “Pay It Forward” ticketing model that allowed supporters to purchase tickets for others, compensating for the lack of traditional studio marketing. Director Andrew Erwin acknowledged this history of exclusion in 2024, stating, “For the first time, movie studios are really giving us a fair shake.”

Faith-based television series have also performed strongly on streaming platforms. A prominent example is The Chosen, which, as of 2025, has reported approximately 280 million viewers worldwide and more than 770-million-episode views as of January 2024. The production reports over 200 million unique viewers globally, with roughly one-third of the audience not identifying as religious.

The series streams on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, and The CW, and its theatrical releases have generated more than $120 million in box office revenue. Its 2021 Christmas special earned approximately $13.5 million in ticket sales and sold about one million tickets, setting a record for Fathom Events. In terms of viewership benchmarks, the Season 4 premiere recorded 4.2 million viewers in its first three days.

By comparison, HBO reported 2.9 million viewers for The Last of Us Season 1 premiere over its first four days, while Netflix reported approximately 250 million views for Wednesday and 140 million views for Stranger Things Season 4 across longer release windows.

The series was initially financed through crowdfunding, raising approximately $11 million from more than 16,000 investors for its first season, making it the largest crowdfunded television project at the time. Investors received equity rather than promotional rewards, with profit distribution structured to begin after a 120 percent return threshold.

According to its distributors, the series is available in 175 countries, translated into more languages than any other television series, and maintains a social media following exceeding 13 million accounts.

As mainstream entertainment and cultural institutions move steadily in a more liberal and secular direction, a large segment of the American public has been pushed aside. More than 160 million Americans still identify as Christian.

While overall church attendance has declined, research shows that those who continue to attend church or actively practice their faith have become more committed and more intentional. This reflects a consolidation of belief in response to an increasingly liberal, LGBTQ-driven, woke secular agenda that dominates media, entertainment, and elite culture.

Faith-based films succeed because they serve an audience that is no longer represented by mainstream entertainment. Christian viewers do not like and do not identify with LGBTQ, woke, liberal agenda films. Faith-based films instead offer moral clarity, redemption, sacrifice, and purpose.

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