A couple months ago, I posted a link to an article of mine in which someone compared the “blaxploitation” films of some years back to what he called the “Godsploitation” movies coming out these days. Now, based on this report from the Gannett News Service, it looks like the two “sploitations” may be coming together:
When Tyler Perry’s film adaptation of his play “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” opened earlier this year and pulled in $22.7 million in its first weekend despite less-than-stellar reviews, jaws dropped. Almost immediately, film studios began looking for something else that could bring what many consider to be a long-ignored audience into movie megaplexes — religious blacks.
No fewer than five similar-themed projects are on the horizon.
“The Gospel” is the most recent movie that focuses on faith and spirituality, what happens when you lose it and how life changes for the better when you get it back. The film, which only cost $4 million to make, originally was slated for video, but after “Diary” took in more than $50 million at the box office, Sony/Screen Gems decided to put “The Gospel” on the big screen.
According to boxofficeguru.com, “The Gospel” opened on just 969 screens its first weekend and raked in an impressive $7.5 million.
FWIW, I love how the article notes that the films blazing the trail in this new mini-genre are successful “despite less-than-stellar reviews”. If I were a member of the target audience, I’d be worried.
Alas, as Canada is more secularized than the States and has a much smaller black population, we almost never get either the independently-made religious niche movies or the “urban” films that occasionally pop up on the weekly top-ten lists.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman opened here a few weeks after it had made its mark on the States — despite being produced by a Canadian company! (I.e., Lions Gate Films, which was named after a bridge here in Vancouver.) But at least it did open here, which is more than one could say for many other “urban” films.
Ditto the original Left Behind, which opened here a few weeks after it opened in the States, despite being produced by a studio in Toronto. That’s certainly more than one could say for the Omega Code movies, or Joshua, etc., etc., which never played here.
Note, BTW, that Screen Gems is the same studio that recently produced The Exorcism of Emily Rose; and Sony Home Entertainment is the company that produced the new Left Behind movie. Coincidence, or evidence of a new corporate policy?
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