Chuck Howard, producer for “I’m Not Ashamed,” a faith-based movie hinged on the story and faith of the first student to be killed in one USA High School massacre of 1999, told the Washington Times over the weekend that he is accusing Google of having an anti-Christian bias in its decision to remove his film’s trailer from YouTube.
CP also reports that the trailer for the film was viewed over 5 million times before the online film sharing site (YouTube) took down the channel and the trailer last October.
Additionally, YouTube has not provided the filmmaker with concrete details on why the company removed the channel.
“As of yet, we have not filed suit against Google, but are exploring all options,” Howard told the Times. “We’ve missed 11 months’ worth of advertising. They’ve destroyed us from carrying the momentum that we originally had going forward.”
Still deciding on how to respond to Google’s censorship of the movie’s promotions for nearly a year, Chuck says he created the YouTube channel last year in order to publish a movie trailer and other behind-the-scenes footage associated with the film “I’m Not Ashamed,”
Chuck further says the channel was shortly reinstated last month only after The Hollywood Reporter inquired about the situation.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the filmmakers spent months trying to get YouTube to explain why they had removed the movie and what was so offensive about the film but never received any explanation from the company.
Much as this controversy surrounds “I’m Not Ashamed”, according to Christian Newswire, the movie has quickly became “the most popular new film in the USA” since premiering in theatres.
It got a 93 percent rating from audiences, beating out even “The Handmaiden and Moonlight,” both of which were scored by fans at 91 percent.
“Another surprise came in the form of a report from Cinemascore, the company that the film business relies on to track viewer attitudes about movies they’ve just seen. I’m Not Ashamed joined an elite group of films who have received A rating from filmgoers,” the report said.
“I’m thankful for the strong response from the American public,” said Howard. “We have been blown away from the response we’ve received from fans and the strong increase from Friday to Saturday shows us that word of mouth is strong. We are humbled and grateful for this warm reception.”
aaron@ugchristiannews.com
