Hollywood Says ‘Sex Sells’—But This Study Proves Otherwise

For the 26th year in a row, the Annual Report to the Entertainment Industry by Movieguide®: The Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment shows clearly that moviegoers prefer relatively clean, heroic, family-friendly movies with Christian, biblical, redemptive, conservative and patriotic faith and values.

“Despite a couple disturbing trends, 2017 was another big year for family movies and movies with faith and values,” said Dr. Ted Baehr, founder and publisher of Movieguide® (movieguide.org).

For example, the most family-friendly movies averaged $51.70 million per movie while the least family-friendly movies averaged only $11.67 million.

Also, 90% of the Top 10 Movies in the United States and overseas in 2017 contained strong or very strong Christian, redemptive, biblical, moral content, including such movies as Boss Baby, Despicable Me 3, Justice League, Thor: Ragnorak and Wonder Woman, among others.

Furthermore, family-friendly movies with absolutely no foul language, sex, explicit nudity or substance abuse earned the most money, significantly more money than movies with such explicit content.

Dr. Baehr presented highlights from the 2018 Report to the Entertainment Industry at the 26th Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala Friday night, Feb. 2, at the Universal Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

Each year, Movieguide® analyzes all of the major theatrical movies according to basic biblical principles, morality and theology from a Christian perspective.

In 2017, movies with very strong Christian, redemptive or moral content and values averaged $57.84 million at the domestic box office, but movies with very strong Non-Christian, false or immoral worldviews averaged only $10.49 million.

Movies with very strong secular humanist or atheist content or worldviews did even worse, averaging only $1.16 million per movie!

Also, Movieguide® identified 75 theatrical movies from 2017 that contained at least some strong or very strong Christian, redemptive content, an increase of 60% from 2012, when there were only 47 such movies. In addition, those movies totaled a whopping $5.68 billion at the box office in 2017 in Canada and the United States alone.

Dr. Baehr noted that, according to recent stats, there are more than 235 million Christians, including children of Christian parents, in America, and 2.48 billion Christians globally.