With a passion to redeem media, Dr. Ted Baehr started Movieguide, alongside his wife, Lili, in 1985.
The annual star-studded Movieguide Awards Gala celebrates celebrities and industry leaders who have helped deliver faith and values-driven entertainment to the silver screen and streaming services around the world.
While discussing the awards show, which will stream on Great American Family on March 5, Baehr told ChurchLeaders that he believes the future of Hollywood will involve the industry making more Christian films. The reason, he said, is because Christians make up a large group of moviegoers. If Christian films make money, Hollywood will continue to produce them.
“Hollywood is probably going to be moving to more Christian films,” Baehr said. “Every year, they do more and more and more, and they’re going to do more.”
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Baehr referenced the pro-life theme in Marvel Studios’ “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” as an example of Hollywood catering to Christians.
“‘Fantastic Four’ is the most pro-life movie ever made,” the Movieguide founder said. “[Sue Storms] says, ‘This is my baby. I’m not going to sacrifice my baby to this awful god here.’ So it’s a beautiful movie. So they’re going to do more of that.”
Baehr also shared that he would love to see the Christian film industry break out of seeing its films make only a fraction of the profits compared to what Hollywood films make.
“I’m glad people are doing it, but I want them to break out of the Christian ghetto,” Baehr said.
“In other words,” he continued, “Hollywood movies like the one that we honored a year ago made $2.1 billion. The second biggest movie we honored was $1 billion.”
