New Family Film Scores Big
by Rebecca Grace
August 23, 2006
(AgapePress) - - High school football is just around the corner, and Carmel Entertainment and Sherwood Pictures produced the perfect family movie to kick off the season. Facing the Giants is set to release September 29 in 400 theaters nationwide.Click to visit the movie website
Remarkably, it is the second film project to come from the 2,700-member Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, where an associate pastor's passion came face-to-face with his pastor's vision.
"He has challenged us to think in terms of reaching the world from Albany, Georgia," said associate pastor of media Alex Kendrick about his pastor, Rev. Michael Catt. "In other words, wherever God has you, you bloom right there and ... touch the world from where you are."
The challenge revolutionized Kendrick's perspective of ministry.
Kicking Off
Deep down inside, Kendrick knew he wanted to make Christian movies, but he never thought a church would allow it -- that is, until Catt told Kendrick to present him with a plan and a storyline.
Kendrick collaborated with this brother Stephen, also an associate pastor at Sherwood Baptist Church, on the project. Soon after, Sherwood Pictures was birthed with the production of Flywheel, a low-budget film about the redemption of a wayward car salesman. Flywheel was a success, running six weeks at a local theater, airing on TBN, being picked up by Blockbuster and Netflix and selling about 35,000 DVDs.
"Well, if this is working, ... let's go ahead and start praying and asking God for the second movie," Kendrick recalled Catt saying. "And so we did."
Facing the Giants is Remember the Titans meets Hoosiers. It tells the story of a Christian school's football team and its beleaguered coach Grant Taylor (played by Alex Kendrick) who hasn't had a winning season in years. His players are apathetic, and his life is falling apart.
Coach Taylor (Alex Kendrick) challenges his players through the grueling death crawl -- a practice drill that becomes a defining moment for the whole team. |
While Kendrick realizes that this movie and its redeeming message will appeal mostly to Christians, he also sees it as an evangelistic tool. After seeing the movie at pre-screenings in Boston and Syracuse, 284 people prayed to receive Christ, according to Catt.
"We don't stop the movie and just shove the Gospel down our audiences' throats," Kendrick said. "We ... present it in a very clear and realistic way and hopefully in a way that touches their hearts ...."
Running the Plays
Six weeks of filming was spearheaded and carried out by church members and an all-volunteer cast, which includes a cameo appearance by Mark Richt, head football coach at the University of Georgia. "God just prompted people's hearts that caught the same vision," Catt said in regards to the church's movie-making endeavors. A third film is already in the works.
Church members funded the making of Facing the Giants by giving $100,000 in only a matter of days.
In addition, God provided a high-quality camera for shooting and a team of five professionals who conducted a movie-making crash course for the crew prior to filming. But most amazing is God's hand in orchestrating the theatrical distribution of Facing the Giants.
"We wanted to use a song called 'Come Together' from the [Christian music] group Third Day, so we called their publisher, Provident Music, in Nashville, Tennessee, and asked them if we could have permission," Kendrick explained.
With only a slim chance that Provident, whose parent company is Sony, would give permission for use in a church-made movie, the music label asked to see the film.
"What began as a routine viewing for publishing approval led to the Provident president's asking to distribute the film," say production notes. "And Provident took it to Sony Pictures. When Sony executives saw the film's high production value, they acquired it for [Samuel] Goldwyn to release nationally."
"The Lord provided all those things, ... but part of the challenge is maintaining a mindset that at any point God could take His hand off this project, and it would lose its power," Kendrick said. "So we think if God's hand is on this, it's going to work to whatever degree He wants it to work."
Be it a conversion, field goal or touchdown, Facing the Giants will score big for the sake of the kingdom.
Facing the Giants is rated PG for the strong thematic elements. With a perfect blend of humor and drama and completely free of profanity, nudity, and gratuitous violence, Facing the Giants is most likely suitable for older children due to the issue of infertility as a subplot and an intense scene where the coach loses his temper.
Rebecca Grace, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is staff writer for AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association. This article, printed with permission, appears in the August 2006 issue.
