With its promise of action and romance, not to mention a stellar cast led by the British actor Henry Cavill and a slick marketing campaign, the new Superman film was always expected to be a box office hit.
But the record-breaking takings for Man of Steel can be attributed in part to America’s mega-churches, which encouraged congregations to see the film by likening the superhero to Jesus.
The film took in $125 million over the weekend in America, the biggest June opening in cinema history and one of the biggest openings ever.
Warner Bros, the studio, employed Grace Hill Media, a public relations firm focused on the Christian market, to arrange screenings for pastors, supply churches with free film clips and even draft sermons that draw on themes in the film that can be given a Christian interpretation.
“Superman’s mythical origins,” the sermon notes say, “are rooted in the timeless reality of a spiritual superhero who also lived a modest life until extraordinary times required a supernatural response. How might the story of Superman awaken our passion for the greatest hero who ever lived and died and rose again?”
There can be parallels drawn between the Superman story and the Bible: a celestial father figure who sends a son with super powers to Earth; a reluctance of the son to assume his role as saviour; and the earthly powers who fear and reject the messianic figure.
Superman also operates to a moral code.
“He has the most extraordinary powers. He has the most extraordinary ideals to live up to. He’s very God-like in a lot of ways and it’s been difficult to imagine that in a contemporary setting,” said Christopher Nolan, the director, in an interview.
It was long the case that God-fearing heartland America regarded Hollywood as representative of licentious excess and liberal politics — its output often condemned from the pulpits as sinful.
But the younger church leaders understand that they must embrace contemporary culture if they are to attract greater congregations.
And for the film industry, middle America is a major market where millions take their social cues from pastors.
The first big breakthrough for marketing a Hollywood film through a Christian outreach operation was The Blind Side, which told the story of an impoverished black teenager who is adopted by a Southern white Christian family and goes on to become a leading American Football player.
Clips of the movie were provided to 22,000 “mega-churches” across the U.S. Many churchgoers went straight from pew to cinema and the film grossed $309-million — more than 10 times the production budget.
Grace Hill Media has promoted about 300 films through more than 150,000 ministers.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen a contemporary church service lately but they’re pretty big, modern places with lots of TV screens, definitely not your grandfather’s church with an organ,” said Jonathan Bock of Grace Hill.
“If you’re a pastor and you just paid $35,000 for a massive hi-tech screen, you don’t just want to screen out the lyrics to ’Our God Is an Awesome God’. Now, if they want to tell a story about hope they can use a clip from The Shawshank Redemption.”