A niche film made in Mobile has far exceeded box office expectations. Jesus Revolution has shocked the movie world with a box office that has risen to $50,898,788 in domestic ticket sales.
While $50 million would be seen as a disappointing box office for the run-of-the-mill Hollywood superhero or space epics that cost $200 million to make, it is a massive achievement for a niche Christian film.
Alabama Today spoke with Brian Jones with the Alabama Film Office about the project.
Jones said the film is another project by Alabama natives Jon and Andrew Erwin. Jesus Revolution only cost about $15 million to make.
“Bringing in over $50 million for Lionsgate is a good return for them,” Jones said. “This is also good for the film’s message, and it means that more films like this will be made,”
This was a small-budget film targeted at Christian audiences by the Alabama-born Erwin brothers. Jon Erwin directed the film – along with Brent McCorkle. Jon Erwin also wrote the story and screenplay along with Jon Gunn and Rev. Greg Laurie.
The movie is based on historical events from Laurie’s childhood and adolescence and centers around his romance with the young lady who would go on to be his wife. Laurie is played by Joel Courtney. Laurie’s steady girlfriend – and future wife – is played by Ana Grace Barlow.
Kelsey Grammer plays Pastor Chuck Smith, while Jonathan Roumie plays itinerant hippy street preacher Lonnie Frisbee. Their unlikely collaboration transforms Smith’s sleepy little California church into a major evangelizing force in the Jesus Movement of the time. Laurie and his girlfriend become members of Smith’s Calvary Chapel Church after hearing Frisbee preach on a high school campus. The casual clothes, freewheeling style of the services, and rock band style of worship developed by the two ministers seems almost stereotypical of evangelical movement churches today. It was not a style of worship that was very controversial in mainline Protestant Churches at the time.
Jones said that the Irwins showed him the screenplay, and he liked it enough that that, combined with the Irwin’s successful track record in films such as Woodlawn, convinced him to award the film state incentives for movies made in Alabama.
“The movie was filmed entirely in Mobile and other Gulf Coast locations,” Jones said. “Because it is a true story, there were about four or five days of filming at the iconic Pirate’s Cove location in California for the baptism scenes.”
“They have a very rocky coast,” Jones explained. “We have a lot of beaches, but we don’t have anything like that.”
While the commercial success of the film has everyone in the Alabama film industry excited, Jones said that it is not the largest box office for an Alabama-made film.
“Under Siege with Steven Seagal was made in Mobile,” Jones said. “A large part of Talladega Nights with Will Ferrell was filmed here. If you go really far back to what led to the start of the Alabama Film Office – much of Close Encounters of the Third Kind was filmed in Mobile.”
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