The convention bills itself as one of the country’s largest Christian media events, with speakers who ranged from Dallas Mavericks chaplain Tony Evans to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. The NRB event was Kingdom's public debut, with multiple cameras streaming to what Jon Erwin described as a potential audience of over 50 million aggregate fans (the actual Facebook Live stats hovered in the range of 2,000 viewers, though the video's since racked up over 180,000 views).
And after striking a multiyear deal with Lionsgate, the Erwins and their producing partners created their own production company, Kingdom Studios, with the aim of putting out two movies a year. But this time around, the Erwins didn’t just reassert the ticket-buying power of the faith-based audience - they turned the head of a Hollywood studio willing to bet on their ability to pull in crowds with movies made on a modest budget. It happened in 2008 with the Cameron vehicle Fireproof, and in 2014 with Pure Flix's God's Not Dead, each hit generating the same bemused surprise from mainstream entertainment media. This wasn't the first time a Christian movie has seemingly come out of nowhere to top the indie charts. Michael Finley in his first, and so far only, screen role. The lead of I Can Only Imagine is a Broadway actor named J. And Green Book had an awards campaign and the combined celebrity wattage of Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali.
Like most faith-based releases, I Can Only Imagine wasn't screened for press or broadly marketed, but reached its intended audience primarily via a grassroots campaign targeting churches and ministries, Christian radio, and Christian press.Īnd for this film, that audience came out to the tune of $83.5 million - only $1.6 million short of what this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner Green Book made in the United States. It's a universe in which endings are uplifting, brushes with death offer glimpses of the divine, and sex happens way offscreen, between a man and a woman, in the context of marriage. I Can Only Imagine came from what has largely existed as a miniature parallel Christian showbiz universe with its own big-name filmmakers, its own festivals, its own recurring stars (like Kirk Cameron, Sarah Drew, and Kevin Sorbo). But, unless you were in the movie’s target demographic, it's possible that this is the first you're hearing of it. In 2018, the rest of the specialty box office dwelled in the long shadow of I Can Only Imagine, the Erwins' fourth feature - an earnest, soft-filter biopic about Christian musician Bart Millard, who had a crossover hit with the eponymous song in the early aughts. "God is on the move in the entertainment business in a way that I can't fully explain or understand, but I'm here to share it with you today.” “We're here to dream, and we're here to share with you a bit of what God's doing in the entertainment business," Jon Erwin told the standing-room-only crowd. Not Wes Anderson, not Alfonso Cuarón, not Spike Lee - Andrew and Jon Erwin, sons of a former Alabama state senator, ESPN camera operators turned filmmakers whose stated goal is “to recapture the imagination of a generation with the Gospel.” Erwin, a square-jawed thirtysomething, and his brother Andrew, the self-described introvert of the pair, had directed the biggest independent movie of the past year. On March 27, Jon Erwin took the stage at Proclaim 19, this year’s National Religious Broadcasters convention in Anaheim, California, with the confidence of someone sure his moment had arrived.
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