Iconic actor Dennis Quaid (“The Parent Trap,” “Reagan,” “Soul Surfer”) and director Andy Erwin (“I Can Only Imagine,” “American Underdog”) say the sequel “I Can Only Imagine 2” was never intended to be a gimmick but rather a continuation that “completes the loop” of a father’s story, one that aims to deepen the emotional arc introduced in the first film.
“It just told the second half of a father’s story that we got to tell the first half with Bart,” Erwin said, referring to Bart Millard, whose life inspired the original movie. “Now we get to tell the second half of when life messes up like now, ‘How do I give to my son, to my kids, what I never had?’ There’s a beautiful, just full circle moment, and this completes the loop.”
Erwin said he was initially hesitant about making a sequel, even though the first film was a massive hit that helped pioneer the current landscape of faith-based entertainment.
“The idea of doing a sequel just was something that intimidated me a lot, because I just didn’t want it to feel gimmicky,” he said. He credited writers Bart Millard and Brett McCorkle with presenting a story that changed his mind. “The story that was pitched to me by Bart and Brett McCorkle just so shattered me, and it just told the second half of a father’s story.”
Quaid, who returns for the sequel, said his decision to sign on was driven by the strength of the material and by a long-standing creative rapport.
“I love working with Andy. It was such a great story again, and it was worth telling,” he said. He described the series as “a chain of fatherhood” in which multiple generational relationships are linked by shared struggles and hopes.
Quaid reflected on the impact of the original film, which he said defied industry expectations and found a wide audience.
“I was so touched just by reading it and making it. And then the weekend it came out, those powers that be that decide everything about what’s going to be success or anything they were saying, ‘Oh, it may make 2 million, like these faith movies, or whatever,’ made 17, and it was very, kind of gratifying,” he said, noting the original’s surprising box-office return and the audience’s ability to detect authenticity in a film.
Andy Erwin placed the sequel in the context of a larger evolution in faith-based entertainment.
“There’s been a small group of us that we all started is these people that said, ‘Hey, we want to represent what we believe, and we want it to be taken seriously’,” he said. “There was a lot of struggles of finding our voices. There was a lot of cheese that we had to wade through. I was part of the cheese.”
But Erwin said the last decade has seen the genre gain credibility and reach, pointing to high-profile projects and filmmakers who have raised the profile of faith-themed storytelling.
“I think that the moments that have come and to see what’s happened, especially in the past, you know, eight years, has been really special. See what God’s done with Dallas Jenkins, with ‘The Chosen’, what my brother (Jon Erwin) is doing with ‘House of David,’ what Alejandro (Monteverde) did with ‘Sound of Freedom’,” he said, referencing recent works that have expanded the genre’s creative possibilities and audience reach.
Erwin credited Quaid with helping legitimize faith-based projects at a critical moment for the filmmakers.
“When Dennis signed on to do the film is, Dennis was the biggest star that we had worked with and for him to kind of take a risk when a lot of other actors hadn’t done that up to that point, he was like, I’m going to legitimize that,” Erwin said. “Because he put his stamp of approval on us, and we made something special, that’s why we keep working together.”
Quaid downplayed any sense of celebrity obligation and spoke plainly about his connection to the project and its themes.
“It’s just a very special film, just on its own, without, with, just, you know, as a story and stuff. It was, I was so touched just by reading it,” he said, adding that audiences can often sense when a film is authentic. “I really believe in audiences. And you know, that’s an audience can smell whether a movie is like authentic, or they’re all sudden they show up.”
Both men struck a tone of camaraderie and mutual respect as they discussed the work that brought them together. “I love working with Andy,” Quaid said simply, stressing the trust that has developed over multiple projects.
Erwin summed up the creative trajectory with characteristic candor: “We kind of formed something really special in that bond, and it’s been cool to see that grow and the audience being taken seriously by the studios.”
“I Can Only Imagine 2,” directed by Brent McCorkle and Andy Erwin and starring John Michael Finley, Milo Ventimiglia, Sophie Skelton, Arielle Kebbel, Sammy Dell, Trace Adkins, Dennis Quaid, releases in theaters February 20 from Kingdom Story Company and Lionsgate Studios. Watch the interview with Dennis Quaid, Andy Erwin and DeWayne Hamby below:
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