www.deadline.com: After the strong staying power of this weekend’s God’s Not Dead and the stronger than expected opening of Paramount Pictures’ Noah following on the heels of the surprise opening of Fox’s Son of God earlier this year, is there any doubt anymore Hollywood that if you build it, they will come? That’s three for three … but wait, actually there’s more. Back in 2008, the Kirk Cameron-starring Fireproof from filmmaker and associate pastor of the Sherwood Church, Alex Kendrick, took a lot of people by surprise. On a $500,000 budget raised by the church, the faith-based picture ended up grossing $33.4M when it was released by Samuel Goldwyn. They did it again in 2011, when on a $2M budget, TriStar released Courageous that opened to $9.1M and went onto make $34.5M. Before that, in 2004, the Mel Gibson-directed The Passion of the Christ opened to $83.8M domestically and went on to gross $611M worldwide.
1 comment:
It never would have even occurred to me that there is a whole niche of moviegoers for Biblical and faith-based films. When I see a trailer or poster for a faith-based movie, like the ones the article mentioned, I never give much thought to the fact that it is centered around religion. To me, I generally just see that as a jumping off point for the plot. Its funny to think about putting "Noah" in the same genre as "Heaven is Real". While both are based in religious subject matter, "Noah" is an action movie, and "Heaven is Real" is based on a real-life account from a boy who underwent a near-death experience. Given more thought however, it makes sense that religious themes could be a draw for some people to go see a movie.
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