Religious faith – and positive black images – win at the box office

The startling success of the new movie “War Room” should send a powerful message to the entertainment industry. This little film about the power of prayer working to save a troubled marriage cost $3 million to make and, in its first two weeks, grossed $30 million at the box office.

Yes, there’s a huge audience of people of faith who will support films with positive religious content. That’s an argument I’ve been making for thirty years, particularly with my 1992 book HOLLYWOOD VS. AMERICA. But there’s something else noteworthy about “War Room” that many observers missed: all of the movie’s most important characters are black, showing successful, upper-middle class, religiously connected people who contrast radically with the thugs and drugs in standard exploitative fare about African-Americans. Apparently, the black community has responded to these more constructive images with gratitude: about half of the early audience for WAR ROOM has been African American.