in the years before the internet, the church encouraged its members to look to its "correlated"—that is, church-produced—films and filmstrips for information and faith-building entertainment. The films produced during this time mostly fit into that category; they were products of the church itself, not of its members independently. However, a growing number of Latter-day Saints began to work in the entertainment industry. The birth of modern Mormon cinema: 2000-2006 In more recent decades, Mormon-made and -themed films produced neither by the church nor by big Hollywood film studios have garnered recognition among LDS audiences. The Mormon cinema movement began in 2000, when director Richard Dutcher realized the potential for a Mormon niche within the film industry and commercially released God's Army, a movie depicting LDS missionaries in Los Angeles. He wanted to improve the way Mormon characters were portrayed on screen. The film, which was produced on a budget of $300,000, grossed upwards of $2.5 million at the box office. God's Army was unique for the time in that it combined a number of unfamiliar factors: an LDS director, an LDS subject matter, a theatrical distribution, and a marketing campaign that targeted Mormon moviegoers. It earned Dutcher the title of "the father of modern Latter-day Saint cinema." God's Army's release marked a major shift in the subgenre; it was not the first widely shown Mormon film, but it demonstrated the viability of such a film achieving relative commercial success. Mormon comedies Observing the financial success of God's Army, Kurt Hale and Dave Hunter founded Halestorm Entertainment in 2001 and focused the new company's efforts on making and distributing Mormon movies. Halestorm began releasing slapstick comedies with Mormon-centric humor in the early 2000s, including titles such as The R.M. (2003), The Home Teachers (2004), Baptists at Our Barbecue (2004), Sons of Provo (2004), and Mobsters and Mormons (2005). The company kept production costs low by filming in its home state of Utah or in nearby Arizona or Idaho. Alongside Halestorm, Excel Entertainment (founded by former Disney executive Jeff Simpson) and Zion Films have spearheaded the production and distribution of Mormon cinema. Films that rely heavily on the viewers' understanding of LDS vocabulary, social norms and self-deprecating cultural humor rarely find success among general audiences. This was true of satirical comedies The Singles Ward (2002), The R.M., and The Home Teachers. Singles Ward, branded "the first major LDS comedy," focuses on a