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 The movie "Heaven is for Real," which depicts the story of a
young boy who claims to have visited heaven during a near death
experience, is the fourth faith-based film this year to stir
movie-going audiences with impressive box office numbers.
Made for $12 million, the film, which stars Greg Kinnear,
collected $21.5 million over the Easter weekend in U.S. and
Canadian theaters, finishing third at the box office behind
bigger budget films "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" from
Walt Disney and "Rio 2" from Fox.
Two other Christian-based films also cracked the top 10. "Noah,"
from Viacom's Paramount Pictures, stars Russell Crowe as the
biblical figure and was ninth. It has generated more than $93
million at domestic theaters since opening in March, according
to the site Box Office Mojo.
"God's Not Dead," about a religious freshman college student who
debates his professor over the existence of God, was 10th and
has totaled $48 million over five weeks, despite playing in only
about half the numbers of theaters of Hollywood's larger films.
Fox's "Son of God," an adaptation of producer Mark Burnett's
10-hour TV mini series "The Bible," generated more than $59
million in domestic ticket sales after opening earlier this
year.
"This audience has long felt left out by Hollywood, and it
certainly looks like this isn't the case anymore," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior market analyst of box office tracking firm
Rentrak, in an email. "The numbers will encourage studios to
make more of these types of films."
Studios have been searching for more faith-based films since Mel
Gibson's 2004 "The Passion of the Christ," which tallied $611.9
million in worldwide ticket sales and was made on a modest $30
million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.
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In the last five years alone, Hollywood has made 26 movies that the
site classifies as "Christian" films, including three based on "The
Chronicles of Narnia" fantasy novels by C.S. Lewis that literary
academics say adopted several Christian themes.
"There's a core audience and they're very interested in seeing films
with a faith-based center," said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide
distribute for Sony Pictures Entertainment, whose TriStar Pictures
unit distributed "Heaven is for Real."
"The one main ingredient most have is that they are somewhat
inspirational in nature," said Bruer. "People feel like they get
something out of it."
Not all get great reviews. "Heaven is for Real" got a positive
"fresh" rating from only 31 of 59 reviewers, according to the site
Rotten Tomatoes.
But some of the films can have a built-in marketing vehicle,
according to David A. R. White, whose company Pure Flix produced the
film "God's Not Dead."
White told Entertainment Weekly that Pure Flix waged an aggressive
grass-roots campaign that included screening the film for 8,000
pastors prior to its opening.
"We have a lot of relationships to the gatekeepers who can rally
their people to go to the movie theater," White told the magazine.
He added of the American audience, "160 million-plus people call
themselves Christians. They go to church once a month, at least.
That's a lot of people."
(Reporting by Ronald Grover; editing by Frances Kerry)
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