Movieguide study says "conservative" movies make more money than "liberal" ones

For two decades now, Movieguide has been promoting the dissemination of conservative, Christian values in cinema, and tonight they mark their twenty-year anniversary with an awards show airing (where else?) on The Hallmark Channel, emceed by former Man of Steel Dean Cain, with a who's who of presenters including Corbin Bernsen, Kevin Sorbo, and, naturally, Pat Boone.

At the ceremony, the organization will also present a seventy-six-page report objectively proving that patriotic movies, which uphold bedrock, conservative principles and don't denigrate Christianity, rake in more at the box office than more liberal movies with their "looser" morals.

The Movieguide report proudly endorses such 2011 releases as We Bought a Zoo, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Battle: Los Angeles, Moneyball, and Hugo, while giving the stink eye to films like Red State, Super 8, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy (shocker!), We Need to Talk About Kevin, Bad Teacher, and Happy Feet Two.

The report's rating system was arrived at by combining over two-dozen criteria, including whether a movie promotes capitalism or socialism, the amount of sex and violence, a film's stance on environmentalism, feminism, homosexuality, abortion, and other various political issues. (I'm guessing they don't have a problem with Boone's turn as "Angel at the Tomb" in The Greatest Story Ever Told.) All told, seven of 2011's top ten films received high marks on Movieguide's index, meaning they contained "strong or very strong Christian, biblical, moral and redemptive content."

Although this seems selective and subjective, Movieguide identified ninety-one films from last year scoring high in the "conservative/moral categories," which, when added up, earned an average of $59 million apiece. They also identified 105 movies with high scores in the "liberal/leftist categories" and, that's right, those titles only earned, on average, $11 million each. The average four-star movie (according to Movieguide) raked in $53.5 million, while the average, morally-suspect, one-star movie took in $10.6 million.

Obvious exceptions to these numbers have to be acknowledged, when you're talking about films like The Hangover II and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, which combined earned more than $1.2 billion worldwide. Movieguide, unsurprisingly, thinks those two promote "fringe worldviews" and "obscene behavior."

This Faith & Values Awards Gala sounds like it's going to be a real wingding, and the Best Movie for Family Audiences category looks to be totally up in the air. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never could take it home, but Mars Needs Moms and Mr. Popper's Penguins might have something to say about that.