Hollywood says there’s no future for family films - here’s why they’re wrong

May 01, 2015

WRITER

Glenn’s made no secret of his love for the new movie ‘Little Boy’, a family film that shows how individuals can perform miracles through the power of faith. Leo Severino, producer of ‘Little Boy’, joined Glenn on radio to discuss the film and why people in Hollywood who say there is no room for family films are completely wrong.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment:

GLENN: I'm really excited about a new friend I made here the last couple of days. He's a guy who has started Metanoia Films and made the movie "Little Boy" and previously before that, "Bella" and is a like-minded thinker and a guy who is trying to change the culture from the inside. And you were with Twentieth Century Fox. Right? Flip up your mic. Leo Severino is with us now. Hi, Leo. You have to flip on that red button. Push it up. Or down.

LEO: There it is. Well, I have to say, first of all, what's up, my crackers? I'm Hispanic. No. My wife is Hispanic.

GLENN: Yeah, your wife is Hispanic. No. It's what's up my, cracka? We're not crackers.

LEO: You can call me your Wheat Thin.

STU: Julio, it's okay for us to say that to each other, but it's not okay for you.

GLENN: Yeah, you're Hispanic. It's totally fine for us.

LEO: As you can tell, I've been a fan of you guys so long. Pat, Stu, Glenn, as well.

GLENN: Notice he left out Jeffy.

LEO: Why do you have Jeffy standing? You can't even give him a chair or something?

GLENN: No. Can you imagine how big he'd be if we let him sit down?

PAT: Oh, my gosh. Plus, no chair could hold him.

GLENN: So, my Wheat Thin, so tell me, first of all, I want to get this movie stuff out of the way here. If I have recommended that you go see "Little Boy" -- this weekend is very important for you to see "Little Boy", if you haven't seen it. Because it probably won't be in the movie theaters for very much longer if you don't go see it. Had a good weekend. But it's open on limited screens. And all of the biggies are coming out here the next couple of weeks.

PAT: Ah.

GLENN: So this is the weekend to see "Little Boy."

PAT: Yeah, it's getting to be that time of year when they push the little ones out of the theaters.

LEO: That's it. David and Goliath time.

GLENN: And there are really great names in this movie. Kevin James, who I think is hysterical.

LEO: Greatest guy on the planet.

GLENN: You're friends with him. Right? What's he like?

LEO: He's fantastic. Hilarious. He's hilarious.

GLENN: I love him.

LEO: Not as funny as Stu, but hilarious.

STU: Wow. That's not going to help his career.

GLENN: Wow. That's really taking him down many, many notches.

LEO: By the way, completely kidding. The guy is hilarious. For real. If you ask me, Kevin James. Emily Watson.

JEFFY: That's fantastic.

LEO: Tom Wilkinson. It's an insanely good cast.

GLENN: It is.

LEO: We were blessed to have that caliber of people.

GLENN: This is the kind of movie that we've said -- have you guys seen it yet?

PAT: Not yet. I'll see it this weekend.

LEO: You're killing me. You have to see it this weekend.

GLENN: We've talked about this. This is the movie that Rotten Tomatoes, the critics gave it 10 percent.

PAT: That's unbelievable.

GLENN: And the audience has given it 88 percent.

PAT: I don't think I've ever seen a disparity between critics and people that wide.

LEO: I think the publicity team said we broke the records.

STU: Congratulations.

GLENN: So here's the thing. The reason it's like this is because it -- it showcases the -- the Frank Capra America. It has that idyllic peaceful, loving sweetness to it that we all love in Frank Capra movies. I think this is a modern day Frank Capra Walt Disney. Not what Walt Disney is now. I mean So Dear My Heart. His movies.

LEO: Back when she was ostracized as well.

GLENN: Right. People said it's all candy corns and sweetness and saccharine crap. That's what made those two guys.

LEO: You said something so wonderful, Glenn, when you said about this film. You said you want to believe in the America that we presented. This Norman Rockwell. We do too. That's why we make these films.

GLENN: I don't know if you know this. You're Hispanic, I don't know if you know this.

LEO: It's an odd thing. And the director. The director doesn't speak English. It's between English and Spanish. Somewhere in the middle. And he believes in that America too. Eduardo, you were gracious to have on the show. The three of us -- he is from Mexico. And he believes in that America too because the US has opened the doors for opportunity that we wouldn't have anywhere in the world.

GLENN: It's always the immigrants. It's always the immigrants that renew us.

LEO: This is our love letter in a sense to America.

PAT: I can't tell you how often we go through the list of movies that are open that weekend, and want to go with the family. And there's literally zero movies we can all go to as a family. It's great to actually have something that you can take the kids to and feel good about.

GLENN: We were talking off the stage yesterday that Leo and I were, that we've brought History House, which is -- you know, our kind of, you know, 30-minute television, kind of our ode to Walt Disney and what he did with the Wonderful World of Disney. And they're telling us now, there are no buyers for family television.

LEO: It's complete rubbish. It's absolute nonsense. When you down to the statistics of what actually sells. I actually brought some stuff. There's this great entity. It's called Movie Guide. MovieGuide.org. Ted Baehr is fantastic. He's been a voice screaming in the wilderness in Hollywood saying, sex doesn't sell. Nudity doesn't sell. Vulgarity doesn't sell. It's not just not the case. When you look at the combined averages of the films, for example, in 2013, his latest report, rated R films, films with graphic elements, accounted for about 11 percent of the combined average of the box office.

GLENN: Eleven.

LEO: Eleven. And they accounted for 47 percent of the films being distributed, en masse. So the diplomatic way of saying this is, you know, the supply is not measurable to the demand out there. It's disproportionate to the amount of the demand. Really what it means is that there's something more than the profit motive going on.

PAT: It means there's an agenda.

LEO: If they wanted to make money, you would just make family -- you're doubling the audience. It's pure economics.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: You worked at Twentieth Century Fox. I don't want to single them out. Because Hollywood is Hollywood. Do you think this movie would have -- do you think "Little Boy" could have been made or would have been made by Hollywood?

LEO: No.

GLENN: Why?

LEO: Pixar, perhaps. That's the model that we really, really, really believe in.

GLENN: Yeah.

LEO: But no.

GLENN: It almost looks like a Pixar.

If Pixar did live action, it looks like a Pixar.

LEO: Thank you for that. And our cinematographer was at Pixar previously.

GLENN: Can I ask you a question. Was it filmed?

LEO: It was on film. The last film in wide distribution that was on --

GLENN: It is beautiful.

LEO: Thank you.

GLENN: I was watching it this weekend, I was thinking I think this is film --

PAT: That was my next question, was it filmed or was it digital? I had to know. I had to know.

GLENN: You won't know why this film hearkens back to that Frank Capra film. You won't know exactly why it feels like those old films. But it's because of film.

LEO: Yes.

PAT: Leo, how was the filmed blocked?

GLENN: Shut up.

STU: What kind of gaffing did you have --

LEO: You have no idea what gaffing is.

STU: No, I don't. These guys do a lot of things to make us look --

LEO: There's something to be said of that. We really thought that we wanted to depict this Americana. The way it would have been predicted if Norman Rockwell were shooting this film. Even at a greater expense and greater time. And you were shooting with a little kid because of these silly labor laws that they have nowadays. You can't shoot so many hours. It was much more expensive. But we thought it was worth it because we wanted something authentic. That was really Americana.

GLENN: Two stories I want you to tell. Tell the story of Eduardo, who he is, and what he's given up to tell these stories.

LEO: If you were a 16-year-old Wheat Thin. I don't know what the appropriate term is. But if you were Hispanic, you would know who Eduardo is. He was this heartthrob, kind of the Brad Pitt of Mexico. Also part of a boy band.

PAT: From a soap opera?

LEO: Yeah, from soap operas. First boy bands then television.

PAT: Was it Maria?

GLENN: Wait. Listen to him say -- go ahead.

PAT: [foreign language]

GLENN: Isn't that great? I think he just lives it. All of a sudden, he's there.

LEO: [foreign language] that was his show. That was Eduardo's big one. [foreign language] was another one. He was on a few. He was like the go-to guy. And his boy band of selling out stadiums with 50,000 screaming women, that sort of thing.

STU: And now he has you.

LEO: And now he has me.

GLENN: Wow. That's good. Big part in this movie.

LEO: That was great. We needed to get him in. But we were like, you don't fit with Norman Rockwell. We'll come up with something. You won't recognize him.

GLENN: At one point they open up a door, and he's like Maria.

LEO: But he had this change of heart. When he came to Hollywood, he did this film called Chasing Papi. Where he was the Latin lover that had three women, he was dating them at the same time. That sort of crazy stereotype. That's when he realized, what in the world am I doing? And then I think God touched his heart. And the rest is history.

GLENN: He told me that he made a promise to his mom and he said, Mom, I will not make a movie that you can't go to.

LEO: That's right.

GLENN: So he has passed on a lot. All the women in the control room when he was on that one day, they were like, you can keep him on. I think we're out of stuff to talk about. Doesn't matter. Keep him going. Because he has quite the opportunity especially in today's world. But he's not going for it. He's not going for the cash. He's going for, let's do the right thing.

LEO: And after he made that promise, he stopped working for years. And him and I met randomly. Not randomly. I think providentially on a random Wednesday at a church. Him and I had kind of similar ideas and similar concepts. At the time I was at Fox, like you mentioned. And I was striving for something of greater meaning. And we connected. And the next thing we know, we did this. It's crazy to start something independent with no connections at the time. No money. We went broke trying to do this thing. And, but we were really firm in the conviction that we needed to do something. You know, there's so much darkness around. We wanted to light a candle.

GLENN: Tell me about the little boy. The actual -- the actor.

LEO: Jakob Salvati. He's fantastic.

GLENN: He is a superstar. I've seen child actors where you're like, that kid will be -- when you saw, Haley Osment. You said, okay, he'll be a star. This kid is off the charts. And it wasn't him that was trying out.

LEO: That's right. They brought in his brother. And he was there as well. Give him a try. First audition didn't go so well. Him and the director kept having the giggles. We passed him up. The casting director was like, this kid got something. He has something.

GLENN: He's magic.

LEO: Not according to the critic. He's been slammed so hard.

GLENN: He carries this movie.

LEO: They call him saccharine. His heart is so pure. He said, I don't understand why -- I don't understand why the critics are saying that. He said, people really love the film.

GLENN: How old is he?

LEO: He was eight when we shot. He's 11 now.

PAT: Wow.

GLENN: He's great.

LEO: He's fantastic.

GLENN: But I hear and, correct me if I'm wrong, the story was told to me because his brother tried out, they went back and got him. And when you decided that it was going to be him, that his brother broke out in tears.

LEO: Yeah. We were in a room together. He said, the director interviewed him, and I was there with him. And the brother starts crying. And we thought it was just a moment of -- you know, maybe he was a little sad he didn't get the role or whatever it was. And he pulled me aside and he said, we're kind of broke right now. And this will save our family. It will save our house. So we talked to his dad. And he's cool with us saying that publicly because they're humble and awesome. This film has touched people in many ways.

GLENN: The kid broke out in tears of joy that his brother got the job. How great -- that is just unbelievable.

PAT: Cool.

GLENN: That's unbelievable.

LEO: , yeah.

GLENN: I'm thrilled to know you. I really am.

LEO: Thank you so much. I am a big fan. Our hearts in the same place. Kind of in different industries. Thank you for supporting. Any way we can support you. We're here.

GLENN: Well, it's an honor. Please go see this weekend "Little Boy". You will not be disappointed. I warn you, it's Frank Capra. So if you didn't like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. If you didn't like, you know, It's a Wonderful Life.

PAT: Well, first of all, you're a communist.

GLENN: You know, if you don't like Norman Rockwell, you're not going to like this. But if you have that heart for America of what it really can be, you're going to love this movie.

LEO: Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that. Frank Capra is my hero when it comes to filmmakers. It's a Wonderful Life.

GLENN: You're Hispanic.

LEO: I know. You keep reminding me of this. I keep having to check to make sure that that's the case. Turns out, it still is. But -- sometimes it takes -- I mean, I was born here. My parents are from South America. Columbia. I love them to death. Obviously. They raised me with the right values. It turns out it's the American values. The same ones. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective like our director who didn't speak the language until he was 17 to show the beauty of this country. That's part of what we're trying to do. I wanted to say, Ben, your cohort --

GLENN: American Dream Labs.

LEO: Yes. He said, say the cities where you need help. So is it all right?

We need help in St. Louis, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Salt Lake City. Those are the four cities, if we can really do well this weekend, we can hopefully retain the theaters going forward. So that's St. Louis, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Salt Lake.

GLENN: Go see this movie. Please, take your family. Take your friends. Take your friend's family. Don't even ask the parents. Just disappear the children for a couple of hours. And go see "Little Boy". You will love it! Truly love it. Thank you so much.

LEO: Thank you, Glenn. Thank you, Pat.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!

What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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