And on the eighth day, God created decent lighting and 🙈production values.
After years of releasing shoddy products featuring has-beens like Kirk Cameron, the Christian film industry is upping its game in an attempt to win a c🧸rossover audience. Is faith-based cinema about to go truly mainstream?
The year certainly has been good to believers. “Heaven Is for Real” with Greg Kinnear, a story about a boy who said he experienced the afterlife during surgery, raked in more than $100 million worldwide. “God’s Not Dead,” abou🅺t a college student who debates his professor on the existence of a higher power, brought in $62 million. Tꦕhe Jesus biopic “Son of God” made $67 million.
Those three films ar🥃e among the top Christian earners in history, trailing only 2004’s “The 🌌Passion of the Christ,” which made a whopping $611 million.
Rick Santorum, former Republican presidential candidate and now head of Christian film studio EchoLight, tells The Post the success of 2014’s crop of godly films is due to better writing, production and marketing. “Faith-bas🧸ed🐽 movies traditionally haven’t been very well done,” he says.
Friday’s “Left Behind” just might be the most mainstream Christian flick yet. It’s based on a popular book series about the rapture, but you mi🔯ght not guess that at first glance.
The film stars marquee talent Nicolas Cage and was directed by Vic Armstrong, a legendary stunt man best known for the “Indiana Jones” series. C🤪age was persuaded to take the role by his brother, Marc — a DJ on New York City’s Q104.3 FM and, according to Cage, a pastor. Cage plays an airline pilot who must calm his passengers and land his plane after the world is thrown into chaos following the sudden disappearance of millions of people. Watch the trailer and the movie might look like your typical Hollywood disaster epic.
“The goal of this movie was to not 🐈be preachy,” says Paul Lalonde, writer and producer of “Left Behind” and CEO of the inspirational film house behind it, Cloud Ten Pictures. “I’ve been preachy in eight movies already. It was time for a different approach. You get too preac♈hy, it turns people off. That’s what’s kept faith-based movies in the church basements and out of the theaters.”
Lalonde was responsible for three previous “Left Behind” movies starring Cameron 🍌that received — we’ll be charitable here, because this is a Christian article — less-than-stellar reviews. For this one, he was determined to spend more ($16 million compared to $3 million for 2000’s “Left Behind”) and improve the production values.
“When comparing this movie to the original — I set the bar really low, so this m꧟ovie looks great,” he jokes.
His company is still working in the traditional faith-based model, which relies 𝓡h🌼eavily on church screenings and believers buying their tickets en masse through their parish. However, he hopes the movies will be high enough in quality to draw in non-believers as well.
Meanwhile, major movie studios are churning out religious fare to draw in devo🔜ut audiences.
“Exodus: Gods and Kings,” a massive biblical epic starring Christian Bale and directed by Ridley Scott, arrives in December, and next year, a prequel to “The Passion of the Christ” with Ben Kingsley called “Mary” is scheduled to hit theaters — not church basemꦏents.