IT
BEGAN WITH A PASSION
HOW THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST LED TO THE KAIROS
PRIZE
By Tom Snyder, Editor of Movieguide®
MOVIEGUIDE® started its Annual Faith & Values Awards Gala and Report to the Entertainment Industry in the early 1990s. The new endeavor was fueled by conversations with billionaire philanthropist Sir John Templeton and others. At that time, only about 10% of the major theatrical releases by Hollywood, including the major foreign and independent releases, contained any Christian values or references to Jesus Christ, the Bible, or Christianity. Even fewer of those releases had a strong Christian worldview where the movie’s basic view of God, ultimate reality, faith, and morality was Christian, redemptive, and spiritually uplifting.
After discussions with Sir John, Dr. Ted Baehr created the Epiphany Prizes for Inspiring Movies and TV in 1995, to promote movies and TV programs that “greatly increase man’s love or understanding of God,” the percentage of movies with at least some Christian, spiritually uplifting and redemptive values and references had increased to 15% of the market. Also, the number of movies with strong or solidly overt Christian, redemptive content or worldviews had increased to 12, or 4.6%, including such movies as Epiphany Prize winner DEAD MAN WALKING, BRAVEHEART, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, FATHER OF THE BRIDE PART II, and WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING.
At the turn
of the new century, with several Epiphany Prize competitions supported
by grants from the John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org)
under our belts, the number of strong faith-friendly movies had more than
doubled, from only 12 to 30, including such hits as REMEMBER THE TITANS,
Mel Gibson’s THE PATRIOT, the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies, and a smaller
movie called RETURN TO ME.
Then, came such huge redemptive hits as Peter Jackson’s version
of the great epic THE LORD OF THE RINGS written by Christian author J.R.R.
Tolkein (which still has a higher box office average per movie than the
HARRY POTTER series) and Sam Raimi’s faith-friendly SPIDER-MAN trilogy
inspired by Stan Lee’s take on Jesus Christ’s words in Luke
12:48, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
All this
time, MOVIEGUIDE® founder Dr. Ted Baehr steadfastedly continued consulting
with filmmakers and helping beginning screenwriters with improving their
scripts and movies, not only making them stronger, more entertaining stories
but also making them more family friendly and faith-filled.
In the wake of all this, Mel Gibson decided to bring back the Biblical
epic with THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. On Feb. 24, 2005, THE PASSION OF
THE CHRIST (which earned $611.90 million worldwide and $372.27 million
domestically) was honored at the MOVIEGUIDE® Awards and Report to
the Entertainment Industry with the $50,000 Epiphany Prize for Most Inspiring
Movie of 2004.
Mr. Gibson
and his team requested a return of the cash prize for this film’s
faith-based, religious story. Thus, MOVIEGUIDE® was faced with an
unexpected decision:
What to do with the prize money?
After exploring different options with Dr. Jack Templeton and others,
Dr. Baehr and MOVIEGUIDE® decided to use these monies to establish
the Annual $50,000 Kairos Prizes for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays
for new and beginning screenwriters.
Based on this decision, the John Templeton Foundation subsequently expanded
grant support for an ongoing competition process to inspire first-time
writers to produce compelling, entertaining, spiritually uplifting, redemptive,
and faith-friendly screenplays. Each year, it awards three winners with
cash prizes of $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000. Also, the Grand Prize winner
is sent to more than 80 leading studio executives, producers, filmmakers,
and television artists in Hollywood for their consideration and/or feedback.
