He approached Sherwood Pictures after seeing “Facing the Giants.” Cameron’s personal faith and acting career have become intertwined in recent years through his roles in films like the “Left Behind” series. The amateurs were trained by professionals in lighting, sound, makeup and camerawork.Įven the leading man was a volunteer. 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. There’s a sheet outside in the atrium, and you can sign up,” Mr. (There were a handful of paid professionals like editors.) “We just announced: We’re going to start on a movie, and if you’d like to volunteer we’ll take you though a boot camp.

“It’s easy to point fingers,” he said in a phone interview from Albany, “but what we need to be doing is offering realistic alternatives.”Īs in Sherwood Pictures’ previous films, the 1,200-member cast and crew was culled mostly from the church’s 3,000 members. Catt, who has helped lead the church since 1989, said he has supported his ministry’s involvement with filmmaking because Christians are often critical of mainstream entertainment without adding something positive to it. As he is about to go forward with a divorce, his father steps in and gives him a book called “The Love Dare,” a 40-day challenge that teaches married couples to use Scripture to learn to love unconditionally. Cameron plays Caleb Holt, a type-A firefighter who rescues children from burning buildings but whose marriage is close to ruin. Kendrick and his brother, Stephen, 35, with the church’s senior pastor, Michael Catt, serving as an executive producer. It was directed by Alex Kendrick, 38, and written by Mr. 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. Anna.” This past weekend “Fireproof” 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. 1 big-budget action thriller “Eagle Eye” and five spots ahead of Spike Lee’s World War II epic, “Miracle at St. 4 at the box office, just a few spots behind the No. Yet it opened two weekends ago with $6.5 million in ticket sales, good for No. The movie features Kirk Cameron, an alumnus of the television show “Growing Pains,” as the firefighter, and it cost just $500,000 to produce.

But that’s what the film “Fireproof” has spawned. An almost all-volunteer cast and crew, including a star who was an ’80s 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.

Fireproof the movie pressbox