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| Co-opting culture ‘VeggieTales,’ other films outgrow home video garden By Michelle Martin STAFF WRITER When “Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie” opens on more than 1,000 movie screens this fall, the animated asparagus-turned-prophet will bring his message into the dark of the theater, and the light of mainstream, big-time popular culture. And the message is more than the movie’s morality tale. It’s that morality tales, given the right medium, can be fun—and, the people behind the vegetables hope, they can sell, too. For their first full-length feature, the folks at Lombard-based Big Idea Productions (how many movie studies can say they’re housed in an old Woolworth’s in a suburban shopping mall? Now that’s meeting your audience where they live) kept the crisp animation, the bouncy songs, the bright colors that made VeggieTales the best-selling direct-to-video series for kids on the market. They’ve turned the heat up a notch, in hopes of expanding beyond their core market of Christian families. But as with this year’s earlier offerings, the Christian-themed “Joshua” (Epiphany Films) and “Little Secrets” (Samuel Goldwyn Films), producers want the Christian community to get the pot boiling. In a day-long event for Christian media representatives, Big Idea founder Phil Vischer explained he is looking for a dual change of heart—and habits. “There are two conversions we have going. One is our conservative evangelicals and trying to get them to come out and go to a movie theater,” said Vischer, who founded Big Idea Productions in 1993 and describes himself as a “cross between Billy Graham and Walt Disney.” “We’ve conceived of a wall around the world, and I think we fooled ourselves into believing that the world built it to keep us out. If you look at it closely, it’s got our fingerprints on it.” Only when the Christian base breaks out of their self-made fortress can it begin to re-evangelize the wider society, he said. “We can’t say evangelism, because that’s related to proselytism, and that’s the last sin we have left,” Vischer said. “It would be great to get our culture to the point to where we could actually discuss beliefs.” To get there, Big Idea and Artisan Family Home Entertainment, the film’s distributor, must find a way to get people who don’t consider themselves religious to go to a theater for a movie based on the Bible. “This is really a conversion with the whole culture,” he said. But the conversion has been going on for years, said Barbara Nicolosi, executive director of Act One: Writing for Hollywood, a Christian screenwriting school. It started with the success of “Touched by an Angel,” which in turn sparked several other spiritual-themed dramas, she said. “In the ’80s, you couldn’t even say ‘God’ on TV,” Nicolosi said. “Now it’s everywhere, even in shows that aren’t explicitly spiritual.” Add to that the financial success of movies like “Left Behind” (Cloud Ten Pictures) based on the best-selling evangelical series of books, which did $60 million in video sales, the reaction to Sept. 11, and family movies like “Ice Age” (20th Century Fox) and “Monsters, Inc.” (Walt Disney Pictures), and you’ve got a movement. “We’re in the middle of a huge paradigm shift,” Nicolosi said. “I think people got sick of unbelief.” The trend extends to more commercial movies aimed at adults, like “Signs” (Touchstone Pictures) and “Changing Lanes” (Paramount), which are full of spiritual and religious overtones, she said. Smaller movies, like “The Rookie” (Walt Disney Pictures) and “A Walk to Remember” (Warner Bros.) in which the teenage romantic leads do not have sex, capitalized on the movement, finding a niche audience. “A Walk to Remember” took in $40 million, nowhere near blockbuster status, but it only took $10 million to produce, Nicolosi said. To start, Big Idea wants to get attention in Christian, including Catholic, media, such as The Catholic New World, just as the producers of “Little Secrets” and “Joshua” did. But Big Idea also took its story directly to the churches, creating a complete Vacation Bible School package for congregations and offering plans for a church-based “Whale Watching Party.” But it also wanted to get attention from mainstream consumers, so it ran trailers before hits such as “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” “PowerPuff Girls: The Movie,” “Scooby Doo,” and “Stuart Little.” If those avenues create a big enough opening buzz Oct. 4, the movie will pick up some free media attention in addition to the $12.5 million publicity and advertising campaign Artisan FHE promised. That could create a groundswell of support going into the three-day Columbus Day weekend, according to Big Idea executives. “I had a vision that there was a deep need for a family entertainment environment that’s trusted by people, and the way to build that is with a certain core group of customers, many of whom are in the Christian community,” said Terry Botwick, who helped develop the Family Channel before coming to Big Idea Productions as president and chief operating officer. Most of the Christian values-friendly entertainment products companies that have sprung up have built on some earlier success: “Joshua” had the series of books by Father Joseph Girzone, longtime Christian best-sellers, while “Little Secrets” features David Gallagher of “Seventh Heaven,” and looks as though it could have been filmed on the popular WB series set. Big Idea works on a larger scale. Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber—featured as one of the “Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” in “Jonah”—already have high name-and-face recognition in the pre-K and primary grade set, and their videos have gotten widely positive reviews from both Christian and secular critics. Unlike this summer’s movies, which had short engagements in the Chicago area, “Jonah” will open at several theaters and its producers are hoping for a run of several weeks at least. VeggieTales fans will likely eat up the more familiar elements, such as an unabashedly religious theme combined with silly song lyrics (“Run from God this morning, you’re whale chow tonight.”) and animated production numbers that riff on pop-culture references from “The Blues Brothers” to “Jaws.” To bump it up, several of the songs are sung by popular Christian recording artists. And while the Jonah story comes from the Old Testament, there’s plenty of overtly Christian symbolism. Ships’ masts, after all, do look an awful lot like crosses. To succeed, Nicolosi said, the movie will have to convince the professional critics as well as the professed Christians. Positive reviews helped generate enthusiasm for “Monsters Inc.” and “Ice Age,” the two most successful animated films of the past year, both of which were popular with parents and kids alike. “A good movie is a good movie,” she said. “If it’s a funny movie, if it maintains its pace, it will do fine. If it’s propaganda, the critics will kill it.” “Jonah’s” whale-size scale could make for a whale-size failure if it doesn’t work. Vischer acknowledged that the company was taking a financial risk with the picture, which cost between $10 million and $20 million to produce, but said it was worth it to take the next step into the mainstream. “That’s why I started playing baseball—to get my chance at the majors,” he said, laughing. “Around here, we refer to money as Legos. It’s only worth what you can build with it. We want to build something that will have impact, and that’s going to take a lot of Legos.” But as a company with an explicitly biblical Christian worldview, Big Idea looks at success from a different angle than most studios. “At the end of the day, God has a plan for our movie,” said Kris Fuhr, vice president of theatrical marketing. The Big Idea crew that worked on the film, many of whom have experience in more secular entertainment companies, said the challenge of bringing Big Idea into the big world drew them into the company. ““It’s making that step out of the garage-band mentality,” said Mark Vulcano, the film’s director of animation. “We’ve been in that transition with the feature film. We’re telling the world that we’re ready to walk with the big dogs.” Vice President of Production Dan Philips worked on “Prince of Egypt,” another Old Testament-based movie, for SKG DreamWorks. When he made the move to Big Idea, he expected a kind “in your face” Christianity. While faith pervades the workplace, he said, it’s in a subtle, humorous sort of way. “I’d never run into a company that wanted to change the world,” Philips said. “That’s the stuff of idealists and young people.” But it’s the only way that make sense for believers, Vulcano said. “I’ve been in the entertainment industry all my life. I’ve been a Christian since 1983,” he said. Then it becomes a question of, what do you use your talents for?” Front Page | Digest | Cardinal | Interview |
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