The Fireproof & Love Dare Phenomenon - 10/15/08

[Smartmarriages]

- THE FIREPROOF & LOVE DARE PHENOMENON

This is truly amazing and what they don't say is that churches all across
the country are teaching marriage-strengthening seminars based on the movie.
At First Things First Chattanooga, they're filling four separate tracks for
one night a week for four weeks: 1) Parasites in Your Marriage; 2) Emotional
Intimacy based on the Sue Johnson book "Hold Me Tight"; 3) Boundaries and
Communication; 4) Singles - Preparing for a Strong Marriage.    - diane


It¹s a Healthy Marriage of Faith and Filmmaking
By JULIE BLOOM
The New York Times 
October 6, 2008

> Mr. Catt, who has helped lead the church since 1989, said he has supported his
> ministry¹s involvement with filmmaking because Christians are often critical
> of mainstream entertainment without adding something positive to it. ³It¹s
> easy to point fingers,² he said in a phone interview from Albany, ³but what we
> need to be doing is offering realistic alternatives.² . . .

> 
> The private showings also served as a catalyst for the early publication of
> the book ³The Love Dare,² which was at first merely a plot device. The
> brothers decided to write the book while they were working on the script and
> this year signed a contract with B&H Publishing Group, a Christian publisher.
> Still, they had no plans to publish it until the movie was released on DVD.
> But at the early screenings, moviegoers requested copies of the book, so B&H
> decided to speed up publication and rush out a paperback edition to coincide
> with the movie¹s theatrical release. . . . ³The Love Dare² will be No. 4 on
> The New York Times advice, how-to and miscellaneous paperback best-seller list
> on Oct. 12.

*****Order a Love Dare Couple's Bundle here - scroll down to 5th item:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/app/Media.Booklist
Bundle is $39.95 - a $20 saving on the combo - you Get 2 Love Dare Books, a
DVD & 2 Study Guides - diane



An almost all-volunteer cast and crew, including a star who was an ¹80s teen
heartthrob, and a plot about a firefighter who saves his marriage by turning
to God ‹ it hardly sounds like a recipe for box office success, let alone a
best-selling book. But that¹s what the film ³Fireproof² has spawned.

The movie features Kirk Cameron, an alumnus of the television show ³Growing
Pains,² as the firefighter, and it cost just $500,000 to produce. Yet it
opened two weekends ago with $6.5 million in ticket sales, good for No. 4 at
the box office, just a few spots behind the No. 1 big-budget action thriller
³Eagle Eye² and five spots ahead of Spike Lee¹s World War II epic, ³Miracle
at St. Anna.² This past weekend ³Fireproof² made $4.1 million more and so
far has about $12.5 million total, according to estimates by Media by
Numbers, a box office tracking company.

The movie is the benefit of a highly targeted marketing plan and the latest
success for Sherwood Pictures, a tiny production company affiliated with
Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga., about 100 miles southwest of Macon.
It was directed by Alex Kendrick, 38, and written by Mr. Kendrick and his
brother, Stephen, 35, with the church¹s senior pastor, Michael Catt, serving
as an executive producer.

In the film Mr. Cameron plays Caleb Holt, a type-A firefighter who rescues
children from burning buildings but whose marriage is close to ruin. As he
is about to go forward with a divorce, his father steps in and gives him a
book called ³The Love Dare,² a 40-day challenge that teaches married couples
to use Scripture to learn to love unconditionally.

The film has received mixed reviews from critics in the mainstream media.
Chris Willman in Entertainment Weekly rated it a C, while Neil Genzlinger in
The New York Times wrote that the film¹s positives included ³that rarest of
creatures on the big (or small) screen: characters with a strong,
conservative Christian faith who don¹t sound crazy.² Some religious groups,
however, were supportive. Mitch Temple, writing on the Web site for Focus on
the Family, said that ³the brilliantly produced film radiates messages of
authentic determination, faith and hope.²

Just as Mr. Cameron¹s character seeks God¹s help, Alex Kendrick said that in
2005 ³we were praying for an idea, and I was jogging around the block and
was inspired to do a movie inspired by marriage.² He jogged to his brother¹s
house with the idea.

The two weren¹t entirely novices; they had made movies as children. After
college and seminary they approached Sherwood Baptist, where they are
associate pastors, about making movies for the ministry. Their first
Sherwood film, ³Flywheel,² was released in 2003, and their second, ³Facing
the Giants² (2006), about an underdog football team, eventually earned more
than $10 million.

³For us most of what is coming out of Hollywood does not reflect our faith
and values,² Alex Kendrick said, ³and so this is one way to throw our hat in
the ring.²

Mr. Catt, who has helped lead the church since 1989, said he has supported
his ministry¹s involvement with filmmaking because Christians are often
critical of mainstream entertainment without adding something positive to
it. ³It¹s easy to point fingers,² he said in a phone interview from Albany,
³but what we need to be doing is offering realistic alternatives.²

As in Sherwood Pictures¹ previous films, the 1,200-member cast and crew was
culled mostly from the church¹s 3,000 members. (There were a handful of paid
professionals like editors.) ³We just announced: We¹re going to start on a
movie, and if you¹d like to volunteer we¹ll take you though a boot camp.
There¹s a sheet outside in the atrium, and you can sign up,² Mr. Catt said.

The volunteers included his own family. His wife, Terri Catt, served as the
casting director and was also in charge of costumes, while his daughter
Hayley was the on-set photographer, and his other daughter, Erin Bethea,
played the wife of Mr. Cameron¹s character. The amateurs were trained by
professionals in lighting, sound, makeup and camerawork.

Even the leading man was a volunteer. Mr. Cameron¹s personal faith and
acting career have become intertwined in recent years through his roles in
films like the ³Left Behind² series. He approached Sherwood Pictures after
seeing ³Facing the Giants.²

³I¹m not on a professional crusade to inject Jesus Christ into every project
that I do,² Mr. Cameron said by phone from Los Angeles. ³But when a good
project comes up that is about marriage and is based on what I think is
really going to help marriages, and is worthwhile, I¹ll jump in with both
feet.²

Mr. Cameron, who has been married for 17 years and has six children, also
said that his faith had helped him survive in Hollywood. ³As a teen idol who
makes it to 37 without being a crack-smoking transvestite stuck in a
drug-rehab center over and over, I¹d say, wow, those values have served me
pretty well,² he said. Some of the proceeds from the film will go to Mr.
Cameron¹s children¹s charity, Camp Firefly.

The movie is one of the more successful examples of a marketing strategy
used for other faith-based films: taking the movie directly to its target
audience. ³You reach the traditional moviegoing audience by devising a
marketing plan that emphasized adverting, but that doesn¹t work with this
audience,² said Meyer Gottlieb, president of IDP/Samuel Goldwyn Films, which
released the film at 839 theaters and plans to expand it to more than 1,000
by Friday. ³It¹s an audience that has to feel and touch the fabric rather
then take your word for it.²

The marketing was handled by Sony¹s Provident Films, which seeks out
Christians at the grass-roots level. Ministry leaders and members of the
Christian press were invited to the set in Albany, and private screenings
were held around the country. Advance sales also helped; on the first
weekend of release 98 theaters were in communities where at least 1,000
tickets had been presold, said Kris Fuhr, Provident¹s vice president for
theatrical marketing.

The private showings also served as a catalyst for the early publication of
the book ³The Love Dare,² which was at first merely a plot device. The
brothers decided to write the book while they were working on the script and
this year signed a contract with B&H Publishing Group, a Christian
publisher. Still, they had no plans to publish it until the movie was
released on DVD. But at the early screenings, moviegoers requested copies of
the book, so B&H decided to speed up publication and rush out a paperback
edition to coincide with the movie¹s theatrical release.

The book, as in the movie, is structured as a 40-day plan for revitalizing a
struggling marriage. Each day starts with a quotation of Scripture and a
short lesson like ³Love is patient² or ³Love is not irritable.²

Marketing for the movie as well as heavy promotion at chains like Barnes &
Noble and Borders have helped fuel sales of the book. It is also selling
strongly at Wal-Mart and Sam¹s Club, said John Thompson, senior vice
president of marketing for B&H, who added that there were 600,000 copies in
print. According to Nielsen BookScan the book has sold 6,000 copies,
although that does not represent sales in places like Wal-Mart. ³The Love
Dare² will be No. 4 on The New York Times advice, how-to and miscellaneous
paperback best-seller list on Oct. 12.

For Mr. Kendrick, there is only one explanation for the successes of
³Fireproof² and ³The Love Dare." "We¹re not trained and smart enough to make
successful movies and write best-selling books,² he said. ³The only way that
this could happen is if after we prayed, God really answered those prayers.²

Motoko Rich contributed reporting.


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