Pure Flix: the bizarre Christian Evangelist answer to Netflix
Most people would surely agree that there are way too many streaming services to keep track of these days, with Netflix inadvertently creating a monster that’s a long way away from the olden days of DVDs being shipped out by post.
Every major studio in Hollywood operates one, with the exception of Sony. And that’s without even mentioning the minor outfits, production companies, and niche offerings that cater to sports, classic films, animation, anime, and whatever else is deemed worthy of its own platform.
There hasn’t been a bandwagon organised religion hasn’t felt compelled to comment on or hop aboard since the dawn of recorded history, so it was only a matter of time before the man upstairs muscled into the on-demand circuit. The result is Pure Flix, the pre-eminent streamer for all things Christian.
It sounds niche to a certain extent, but let’s not forget the exact demographic the service is catered towards are some of the most ardent cinephiles around, provided the content is catered directly to them and not many else. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ cleared $600 million in ticket sales, and 2023’s Sound of Freedom earned more at the domestic box office than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, so the core audience knows what they like, and they’ll damn well show up. Pardon the blasphemy.
In fact, Pure Flix made such a splash it was acquired by Sony in 2020, and the library isn’t comprised entirely of cheap-and-cheerful faith-based stories, either. The Biblical drama series The Chosen is so popular certain episodes have screened in cinemas. Miracles from Heaven is headlined by Golden Globe winner Jennifer Garner. In addition, the God’s Not Dead franchise was immensely profitable, and in the coup of the century, it signed Saved by the Bell veteran Mario Lopez to an exclusive development deal.
Playing to the gallery, Pure Flix even introduced an option for its most conservative subscribers that would filter out unsavoury terms like “hell” and “damn” from its programming because even movies and TV shows with a heavy religious bent aren’t immune from the scourge of language that can’t be spoken on the pews.
It’s never going to trouble the market share held by Netflix, Disney+, Max, Prime Video, or any of the other designated heavy hitters, but Pure Flix does have a customer base that numbers well over a million. In the grand scheme of things, that sounds surprisingly low, but then again, maybe the platform has been limited by the restrictions it imposed upon itself.
Some folks just want to watch wholesome, inoffensive, and maudlin Christian content that doesn’t have anything else to say other than the message that’s been hammered home since the first edition of the good book, and that’s fine. To each their own, do unto others, and so on and so forth.
From a cynical perspective, it’s a corporate masterstroke to zero in on that exact subsection of society and give them the chance to mainline Christian stories all day, every day, but Pure Flix is clearly doing something right if it was welcomed into the Sony family, backed by Great American Media, and dived headlong into the streaming wars.
