It seems like Hollywood these days is only capable of pumping out movies with violence, gore, sex, and drugs, or zillion-dollar comic book effects. So how is it that a movie with none of those things managed to come out second in box office ratings? Did we mention the movie centers around prayer? Perhaps prayer really is that powerful.
Filmmaking brothers Stephen and Alex Kendrick have shocked Hollywood again with the success of their most recent movie, War Room, a film depicting an African-American family with a shaky marriage and the very real presence of prayer.
The Kendrick brothers have also been responsible for other religious-themed films such as Fireproof, Facing the Giants, and Courageous. Each of those films had been successful for its genre upon being released, but did not receive the amount of attention War Room has been getting.
War Room raked in more than $11 million and came in second right behind Straight Outta Compton, which grossed about $13 million. It also beat out intense thrillers such as Mission Impossible-Rogue Nation and No Escape, which comparatively were shown in more than 3,000 theaters across the nation. This is almost mindboggling considering the circumstances surrounding the faith-based film.
For starters, the $3.5 million budgeted movie featured three fairly unknown actors and has only a PG rating — no guns or sex here, just your average suburban family working through everyday problems. The little star power combined with no major promotion and being released during the “late August slumber” had failure written all over it.
The Christian film was expected to hit roughly only $5 million or so. And despite the movie playing in only 1,135 theaters it still managed to rank second and even earned “an A+ CinemaScore — the first film to do so this year since American Sniper.” It is also the “highest-earning faith-based debut since 2014’s Heaven is for Real.”
What was the recipe for success for this film? The Christian brothers chalked the victory up to their faith of course. The DailyMail Conferred, “‘God totally gets the credit for what’s happening.’ Stephen Kendrick said in a statement of the film’s success. ‘Thousands of people have been praying for this movie.’”
Alex also commented that this particular film “‘was prayed over probably more than anything we’ve ever done[,]’” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Of course secular critics had something to say about the film, mostly in the form of negative reviews. It received only a 27 percent positive review from Rotten Tomatoes.
The Hollywood Reporter also stated:
Alex said he takes them [secular critics] with a smile. ‘Some of our critics, especially the secular critics, will accuse us of preaching to the choir and accuse us of not hitting our proper audience, which is hilarious to me because we know our audience,’ he said. ‘They're not coming at it from our worldview. We get that. All of us have free will. It is a little bit of a hoot sometimes to read what they perceive even as our target audience.’
Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s senior media analyst remarked to Entertainment Weekly, “I think the days of being surprised when faith-based movies do well should be over.” Further he said, “[f]aith-based movies are filling a void and serving an audience that has been pretty much left out of the movie conversation for many years.” Thanks liberal Hollywood, but you can keep your sex, drugs, and rock N roll.
