Angel Studios Announces 'The Angel Promise': No Nudity or Sex on Screen, No Misuse of God's Name, and a Member Vote on What Gets Made
In a first-on-Fox interview, co-founder Jeff Harmon says the streamer is setting permanent content standards and giving its roughly 3 million paying Guild members a veto. Projects need a score of at least 70 out of 100.
A faith-friendly streaming company is putting its content rules in writing, and handing its members more say, Fox News reports.
The pledge. Angel Studios announced Thursday what it calls "The Angel Promise," which Fox says rests on three commitments: audience approval of content, strict standards on sex and language, and expanded parental controls. Co-founder and Chief Content Officer Jeff Harmon told Fox News Digital: "We promise there's never going to be nudity, and there'll never be sex on screen."
The language rule. Harmon said Angel's originals, meaning projects that come to Angel first, will not misuse God's name. The company also bars the F-word in its stories, and bars profanity in titles submitted for children ages 12 and under. He said no major studio has made such a promise.
The audience veto. Harmon said the Angel Guild, which he put at about 3 million paying members, will approve or reject projects before they enter the library. A film or series needs a score of at least 70 out of 100 from members. He called it "the first time in history" a top-10 U.S. studio has given the audience a veto, and said more than 100 films were open for members to vote on at the time of the interview. Fox says the company reports nearly $300 million paid out to filmmakers through the Guild, with recent titles including "David" and "The King of Kings."
Parents. Guild members will help set age ratings and plain-language descriptions of sensitive material, and new controls in the Angel app will let parents tailor viewing.
His argument. Harmon said Hollywood "lives in a bubble" and has "drifted more and more away from the values-based audience that they used to serve." He said the founders, four brothers and a cousin with 34 children among them, want to "step into middle America's shoes."
Note for readers: the membership, payout and "first in history" figures are Harmon's and the company's own, and Fox's account is based on a single interview. We have not independently checked them. A caption in the Fox piece quotes Angel's website describing the Guild as "over 2 million" members, while Harmon cited about 3 million paying members, so the exact count is unclear.