Fox To Offer Christian Films on FoxFaith

 

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has launched FoxFaith, a home video label devoted to Christians and church-goers across America. The launch of FoxFaith comes after 20th Century Fox noted the success of Christian films, such as The Passion of the Christ and Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia.

 

The new 20th Century Fox venture will focus on acquiring Christian-themed films to release on DVD. As well as the home theatre market, FoxFaith has struck a deal with the film distributor, The Bigger Picture, whereby FoxFaith will market the theatrical release of up to 12 films per year, most of which will have a modest budget of $5 million. The first title to be a part of the new deal will be Love's Abiding Joy, which hits 250 theatres on October 6.

 

Reuters reports that FoxFaith's marketing power comes from "marketing network tied into 90,000 churches and 14 million households nationwide."

 

FoxFaith has launched a new website to promote the new division of News Corp. As part of the "About" section on the website, a description of the films to be released by FoxFaith is given. "To be part of Fox Faith, a movie has to have overt Christian Content or be derived from the work of a Christian author."

 

Steve Feldstein, senior vice president of marketing at Fox Home Video, was quoted by The Mercury News as saying " We saw the opportunity to fill the needs of an underserved marketplace. All of this programming is entertainment first. We're not in the business of proselytizing or preaching."

 

Jeff Yordy, the vice president of marketing for FoxFaith, was quoted by Coming Soon as explaining " We simply recognized that there was a hugely underserved audience and seized the opportunity to provide them with high-quality entertainment that reflects their values. And, as a result, we've seen explosive growth in this marketplace over the past few years, which only proves to us that we're successfully tapping into our core constituency. We work very closely with the Christian retail community as well as a variety of Church and thought leaders across the country and they have fully embraced what we're doing with FoxFaith and the banner has truly come to represent relevant and compelling programming that our consumers and retailers know they can trust."

 

[Additional Sources: Reuters, BBC, FoxFaith, Mercury News, Coming Soon]