Hollywood bean counters have started calling them \u201cGod films.\u201d<\/p>\n
The typical faith-based indie has a tiny budget and most of the actors are amateurs or second stringers from television. It doesn\u2019t take much money to promote one because churches are eager to hold pre-release screenings that fire up clergy and volunteers to spread the word \u2014 on foot and online.<\/p>\n
Southern Baptist entrepreneurs in Georgia made the pro-marriage drama \u201cFireproof\u201d for $500,000 and it grossed $40 million at the box office, before the DVDs started reaching Bible bookstores. The new Possibility Pictures team spent only $3 million making its first film, \u201cLetters To God,\u201d which opens this week.<\/p>\n
Studio people can do the math.<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of people are interested in that \u2018Fireproof\u2019 business model,\u201d said Patrick Doughtie, who wrote the original \u201cLetters To God\u201d screenplay and helped direct the movie. \u201cThey don\u2019t really know what they\u2019re looking for in terms of content, but they know that these movies are reaching an audience and making some money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doughtie, on the other hand, knew exactly what he wanted to see when \u201cLetters To God\u201d reached movie screens. He began studying screenwriting in order to tell a highly personal story based on the life of his son, Tyler, who died in 2005 at the age of 9 after a battle with an aggressive brain tumor.<\/p>\n
After wrestling with anger and depression, Doughtie finally realized how much his son\u2019s faith had touched the lives of the people around him, old and young, and especially other members of Grace Baptist Church in Nashville. <\/p>\n
This provided the hook for a fictional story about a boy named Tyler who has brain cancer and begins writing letters to God full of questions about his own life, as well as prayers for his family and friends as they struggle with their fears that he will die. The letters end up in the hands of a postal worker who is struggling with alcoholism and the break-up of his own family.<\/p>\n
After he had finished the basic script, Doughtie found a notebook in which Tyler had written some letters to God. This made him even more determined to find producers who were willing to tell the story with the faith element intact.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll kinds of people are touched by cancer and they\u2019re going to know what this movie is all about,\u201d he said, days before the movie\u2019s April 9 release in 900 theaters nationwide. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t want to write a story that was just about cancer. I wanted to write a story about hope and about what needs to happen after a battle with cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n
For years, the makers of these faith-driven films have insisted that they can serve as evangelistic tools to reach nonbelievers \u2014 even though they are full of hymns, prayers, church services, mini-sermons and other acts of God that tend to appeal to people who are already in church pews.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, most of the crucial scenes in \u201cLetters To God\u201d pivot on confessions of faith, accompanied by lilting flutes or heavenly choirs. <\/p>\n
Even the most painful moments are squeaky clean. The alcoholic mailman doesn\u2019t shout a single curse when he hits rock bottom or when his wise local bartender refuses to serve him another drink. Tyler\u2019s mother, Maddy, is already a widow and, by the end of the movie, knows that she will lose her youngest son. Still, she loses her cool only once \u2014 when her own mother reminds her of a biblical parable about faith. She shouts: \u201cI wish everyone would stop quoting the Bible to me. It\u2019s not curing my son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doughtie said that he hopes nonbelievers will see \u201cLetters To God,\u201d but he knows they will not be the primary audience. More than anything else, he hopes the movie will inspire church leaders to learn how to minister to families affected by cancer.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople wanted to help us, but they didn\u2019t know how,\u201d said Doughtie. \u201cThey loved us. They prayed for us. They brought us casseroles. They wanted to help. \u2026 But what are you supposed to do after you pat someone on the back and say, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m sorry you lost your kid\u2019?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have to do is remove the stigma from childhood cancer. People in our churches need to take their blinders off and get more involved with cancer families.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hollywood bean counters have started calling them \u201cGod films.\u201d The typical faith-based indie has a tiny budget and most of the actors are amateurs or second stringers from television. It doesn\u2019t take much money to promote one because churches are eager to hold pre-release screenings that fire up clergy and volunteers to spread the word […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1534,360,431,1542,666],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-godbeat","tag-evangelicals","tag-film","tag-hollywood","tag-movies","tag-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\n