TheNextSherwoodMovie.com

UPDATE 

Baptist Press Press Release

Next Sherwood film to spotlight fatherhood

by Michael Foust, posted Monday, November 16, 2009

"Courageous," a movie about fatherhood that the church hopes will convict men to rise up and be spiritual leaders of their children and families.

Alex and Stephen Kendrick, associate pastors at Sherwood Baptist Church, said the script -- which the two brothers have not finished -- will focus on the lives of four policemen and their struggle to be better fathers. Not all of them succeed. It will be the fourth movie from the church, which saw its last two films, Facing the Giants (2006) and Fireproof (2008), surprise movie observers and gross $10 million and $33.5 million, respectively, despite relatively small budgets by Hollywood's standards. Fireproof was the top grossing independent film last year. The church gets only a small slice of the revenue and puts it toward various ministries.

The target date for filming Courageous is spring 2010, with release likely in early 2011. A budget has not been set, although it probably will be more than it was for Fireproof, which cost $500,000 to make.

The movie is being filmed at a time when 36 percent of all children live without their biological fathers and 40 percent of all births take place outside of marriage.

The announcement -- attended by a large contingent of Christian and secular media-- would have gone largely unnoticed if not for the success of its recent films, particularly Fireproof, which spawned a New York Times best-selling book, "The Love Dare" and also launched a marriage movement. The church, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, is praying that Courageous sparks a fatherhood movement.

"The media often portrays fathers as weak, selfish, often immoral," Alex Kendrick told church members. "But we know the healthier home is when a father is engaged and involved with a purpose.... It is our desire that when men walk out of the theater, they will ask themselves what kind of man they are and -- if they are a father -- what kind of father they are."

He added to a standing ovation, "Is this [movie] likely to be controversial? You bet. But are we going to back down from what the Lord has told us to do? No way."

The controversy, Alex Kendrick told Baptist Press, cannot be avoided in a movie that tells men they should be the spiritual leaders of their families.

"We want to say, 'Fathers, it is your job to nurture and to lead your children in the admonition of the Lord. The steering wheel of your family is supposed to be in your hands, not your wife's, not anybody else's. This is your job.' Your job is to serve and protect and to teach about the Lord."

The movie has already impacted Stephen Kendrick's marriage. He said in writing the script he became convicted so much that he started leading his family in evening discipleship, reading the Bible to his wife and four kids, and leading in discussion. The effect on his children, he said, has been "incredible."

"My heart's desire is if we can call men to spiritual leadership in their homes and to be praying over their kids and their families and to be feeding them the Word ... there's no telling what God will do," Stephen Kendrick told BP.

The movie will spotlight one of the officers and how he is led to be a better father following a tragic event in his family. At one point the policeman tells his friends, "I do not want to be a good enough dad. I want to be a good dad honorable to God." He searches the Bible and writes out a "code" for what kind of father he wants to be, and he asks his three police buddies to hold him accountable. All of them are inspired by watching the change in his life, but not all of them end up being godly fathers.

Courageous, the Kendricks said, gets much of its inspiration from the Old Testament prophet Joshua and his declaration in Joshua 24:15,  "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The movie gets its title from God's urging of Joshua to be "strong and courageous."

The movie's theme and title were decided after a year of prayer by the Kendricks, senior pastor Michael Catt and executive pastor Jim McBride. Even before the church shot its first film, Catt said, it was decided that the four must be in agreement over every major decision.

"We don't do any of this with a 3 to 1 vote," Catt said. "We have to be in harmony and unity because we believe that God blesses unity."

Courageous, Alex Kendrick said, is not a "Fireproof Part 2."

"Fireproof was centrally focused on marriage. This one is not," he said. "It will have aspects of marriage but this one is centrally focused on men living with integrity -- especially in light of their role as fathers. We're going after the hearts of men with this movie and calling them to take God at his Word."

The film's script, McBride said, "will dictate the budget," which they hope to know in about two months.

More Background On TheNextSherwoodMovie.com

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com occupies an interesting little corner of Internet and independent-film history. The website was created around 2009 to generate curiosity and anticipation about the fourth feature film from Sherwood Pictures, the filmmaking ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia.

At the time, the title of that fourth film had not yet been publicly announced. Visitors were invited to speculate about what Sherwood Pictures would do next after three increasingly successful Christian films: Flywheel, Facing the Giants, and Fireproof. The answer eventually proved to be Courageous, a drama centered on police officers, fathers, personal responsibility, family relationships, and Christian faith.

Viewed retrospectively, TheNextSherwoodMovie.com is more than a promotional curiosity. It captures a transitional period when Sherwood Pictures was evolving from an unusual local church filmmaking project into one of the most visible organizations in the rapidly growing American faith-based movie industry.

The site also demonstrates how independent filmmakers could use online anticipation, existing audiences, church networks, word of mouth, and a sense of community participation to promote a movie without depending entirely on the conventional Hollywood publicity system.

The Purpose of TheNextSherwoodMovie.com

The site's original concept was deliberately simple: Sherwood Pictures had decided to make another movie, but its subject and title were still secret.

Rather than merely announcing that fact, the campaign turned the uncertainty into a promotional device.

Visitors were encouraged to consider what could be learned from Sherwood's first three films and to wonder what theme the filmmakers would address next. The announcement of the title and storyline was scheduled for November 15, 2009.

That made the website essentially a teaser campaign.

The idea was particularly appropriate for Sherwood Pictures because its previous films already had identifiable themes. Flywheel concerned honesty and integrity in business. Facing the Giants combined high-school football with themes of faith, perseverance, fear, and adversity. Fireproof focused on a troubled marriage and the possibility of reconciliation.

The question facing followers was therefore not simply, "What movie will they make?" It was also, "What problem will Sherwood Pictures address next?"

The answer was fatherhood.

The surviving site explains that its purpose was to promote and build excitement for Sherwood's next movie. Its archived material repeatedly stresses that the project was considered a ministry rather than simply an entertainment business.

The Reveal: The Next Movie Was Courageous

On November 15, 2009, Sherwood Baptist Church announced Courageous. Baptist Press reported the news the following day.

Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick described a story built around four police officers confronting their shortcomings as fathers. The concept was intended to challenge men, particularly Christian fathers, to become more involved in their children's lives and to assume what the filmmakers regarded as spiritual responsibility within their families.

The film's inspiration included the biblical story of Joshua and especially the declaration in Joshua 24:15, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Its title reflected God's command to Joshua to be strong and courageous.

The choice of subject continued Sherwood's established formula of connecting an accessible dramatic story with a clearly defined Christian message.

The filmmakers also made clear that Courageous was not intended as Fireproof Part 2. Whereas Fireproof concentrated primarily on marriage, Courageous would concentrate on men, integrity and fatherhood.

That distinction mattered. Sherwood Pictures had discovered with Fireproof that a movie could become the starting point for a much larger ministry campaign. The accompanying book The Love Dare became a major bestseller and was used by couples and churches far beyond the film's theatrical audience. With Courageous, the filmmakers hoped a comparable movement might develop around fatherhood.

Who Was Behind Sherwood Pictures?

Sherwood Pictures was not a conventional independent film studio. It was a ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, in southwest Georgia.

The filmmaking operation grew largely from the work of brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick. Alex joined Sherwood Baptist Church's staff in 1999, and Stephen followed in 2001. The brothers had experimented with filmmaking from an early age and later produced video material for churches.

The idea of creating feature films developed from their belief that movies and television had enormous cultural influence and that Christians could use the same medium to communicate their beliefs.

Senior pastor Michael Catt supported the idea, and Sherwood Pictures emerged in 2003.

Leadership was unusually collective. Major filmmaking decisions involved Michael Catt, executive pastor Jim McBride, Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick. Contemporary accounts emphasize the importance the group placed on agreement before moving forward with a project.

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com reflected this unusual identity. Its language was less like that of a studio marketing department and more like that of a church preparing for a major ministry project. Prayer, purpose and anticipated spiritual impact were central parts of the promotion.

From a $20,000 Movie to a National Audience

Understanding why people cared about "the next Sherwood movie" requires understanding how rapidly Sherwood Pictures had grown.

The first production, Flywheel, appeared in 2003. Made for roughly $20,000, it told the story of a dishonest used-car dealer whose Christian conversion causes him to rethink how he conducts his business.

It was an extraordinarily modest beginning compared with conventional filmmaking.

Then came Facing the Giants in 2006. Produced for approximately $100,000, the football drama became a theatrical success, eventually grossing more than $10 million domestically.

That changed the scale of Sherwood's filmmaking ambitions.

The third movie, Fireproof, had a budget of approximately $500,000. It starred Kirk Cameron as firefighter Caleb Holt, whose marriage is collapsing. The story follows Caleb through a 40-day challenge designed to change his behavior toward his wife.

Released in September 2008, Fireproof grossed more than $33 million domestically.

The progression was remarkable: approximately $20,000 for Flywheel, $100,000 for Facing the Giants, $500,000 for Fireproof, and eventually about $2 million for Courageous.

Sherwood Pictures was demonstrating that a church-based production operation in Albany could produce movies capable of reaching theaters nationwide.

Albany, Georgia, as an Unlikely Movie Center

Location was an important part of Sherwood Pictures' identity.

Albany, Georgia, is far removed from Hollywood, yet Sherwood's filmmakers made that geographical separation part of their story. Their stated concept was essentially to reach the world from Albany.

The city and surrounding community were not merely the background for the films. Local organizations actively participated.

During Fireproof, for example, the Albany Fire Department provided locations, vehicles, training and assistance. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital supplied facilities. Local businesses, churches and residents provided meals, buildings, houses, equipment and other resources.

The film was shot entirely in the Albany area.

This community-supported model helped Sherwood make films that looked considerably more expensive than their cash budgets suggested. A location that might cost a conventional production company thousands of dollars could sometimes be donated. Church members supplied labor. Community institutions provided cooperation.

By the time Courageous entered production, Sherwood had already established a system in which Albany itself effectively became part of the production infrastructure.

The Volunteer Production Model

One of the most distinctive features of Sherwood Pictures was its dependence on volunteers.

This was not simply a case of hiring a few unpaid extras. Volunteerism extended across large portions of the productions.

Church members acted, worked behind the camera, provided food, handled makeup and costumes, supplied locations and equipment, cared for children, helped with security and performed numerous other jobs.

The Fireproof production involved approximately 1,200 volunteers or supporters in various capacities. Twenty Sunday school classes, representing more than 1,000 people, participated in catering. Local restaurants and churches also provided food and facilities.

Even Kirk Cameron reportedly declined a salary for Fireproof, requesting instead that a donation be made to a ministry he and his wife supported.

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com therefore promoted something substantially different from an ordinary studio sequel. To its core audience, another Sherwood movie meant another enormous community undertaking.

The site explicitly described Sherwood productions as using all-volunteer casts and predominantly volunteer crews, even noting the role of Sunday school classes in feeding productions.

What Courageous Was About

Courageous follows law-enforcement officers whose professional lives require them to demonstrate bravery, discipline and responsibility but whose family lives reveal more complicated shortcomings.

The central characters include Adam Mitchell, Nathan Hayes, Shane Fuller and David Thomson. A devastating event forces Adam to reassess his relationship with his children and his responsibilities as a father.

The story eventually leads to a written "resolution" defining principles the men promise to follow as fathers and Christians.

The movie incorporates several storylines involving marriage, children, crime, employment, integrity, grief and faith. Its police setting also allowed Sherwood to add action sequences to the domestic drama.

This combination was important to the film's commercial strategy. Although its central message was explicitly religious, Courageous was structured as a dramatic narrative rather than as a documentary or filmed sermon.

Production and Release

The original announcement anticipated filming in spring 2010. The completed movie eventually reached American theaters on September 30, 2011.

Alex Kendrick directed and co-wrote the film with Stephen Kendrick. Alex also appeared as Adam Mitchell.

The production budget was approximately $2 million, four times the reported budget of Fireproof but still extremely small by mainstream studio standards.

TriStar Pictures handled domestic theatrical distribution.

Courageous opened in 1,161 theaters and earned approximately $9.1 million during its opening weekend. It eventually reached 1,214 theaters at its widest release.

Its original domestic theatrical run generated approximately $34.5 million, with worldwide receipts of roughly $35.2 million. Including its later tenth-anniversary rerelease, domestic grosses rose above $35 million.

Those numbers demonstrated that the audience Sherwood had built through its earlier movies had not disappeared. In fact, the opening weekend for Courageous was substantially larger than those of either Facing the Giants or Fireproof.

Popularity and Audience Response

The reception of Courageous illustrates an important characteristic of the faith-based movie market: critics and target audiences sometimes evaluated the same film very differently.

Metacritic recorded a score of 42 out of 100 from professional critics, categorized as mixed or average. Rotten Tomatoes reports a 43 percent Tomatometer score based on 21 reviews.

Audience reaction was considerably stronger. Rotten Tomatoes records an audience score in the mid-80-percent range based on more than 25,000 ratings, while Metacritic's user ratings were also substantially more favorable than its professional critical score.

Some critics praised the filmmakers' rapidly improving technical abilities. The Hollywood Reporter, for example, noted Sherwood's growing filmmaking expertise and its mixture of drama, comedy and action. Variety described Courageous as Sherwood's most polished production to that point.

Other reviewers objected to the film's overt preaching, length, dialogue and explicitly evangelical worldview.

The division is revealing. Sherwood Pictures did not attempt to hide the theological purpose of its films. The filmmakers openly described moviemaking as ministry. Consequently, viewers who shared or were receptive to that framework often responded very differently from critics evaluating the movie primarily as mainstream cinema.

Awards and Recognition

Courageous accumulated substantial recognition within Christian film and entertainment circles.

At the 2012 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, it won both Best Feature Film and the festival's top Jubilee Award. The festival's grand prize was particularly notable because of the large cash award associated with its Best of Festival honor.

Courageous also received the Epiphany Prize associated with the Movieguide Awards.

In 2013 it became the inaugural winner of K-LOVE's Film/Television Impact award. K-LOVE later noted that the movie had played for 17 weeks, reached more than five million viewers and earned more than $34.5 million in ticket sales.

It also received recognition from the Gospel Music Association's Dove Awards as an inspirational film.

These honors reinforced the film's standing within Christian popular culture even while mainstream critical reaction remained mixed.

Press and Media Attention

By 2009, Sherwood Pictures had reached a point where announcing another movie itself generated news.

That had not been true when the group made Flywheel.

The difference was Facing the Giants and especially Fireproof. A church in southwest Georgia had demonstrated that it could create a movie for a fraction of a typical Hollywood budget and still generate millions of dollars in theatrical revenue.

The unusual production story attracted additional interest: pastors making movies, church members serving as cast and crew, Sunday school classes catering meals, local government agencies providing locations, and Christian audiences mobilizing through churches and word of mouth.

Alex Kendrick eventually appeared in or was interviewed by national media outlets including Good Morning America, ABC News, CNN, Fox News, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Time.

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com emerged at exactly the point when Sherwood's next move had become a legitimate media question rather than simply an announcement of interest to one congregation.

More Than a Movie: Books, Churches and Ministry Resources

Sherwood's influence was not limited to ticket sales.

Fireproof demonstrated how a film could generate an ecosystem of related material. The Love Dare, which plays a major role in the movie, became a publishing phenomenon.

Courageous followed a similar model.

Related books included The Resolution for Men by Stephen and Alex Kendrick and The Resolution for Women by Priscilla Shirer. Other related publications addressed Christian living, fatherhood and family responsibility.

This extension beyond the movie theater helps explain the original website's emphasis on "impact." Sherwood's objective was not merely to persuade someone to buy a movie ticket. The filmmakers hoped the story would become the starting point for conversations, church programs, Bible studies, books and behavioral changes.

Whether viewers accepted the filmmakers' theological conclusions or not, this strategy was an important innovation in faith-based film marketing.

Cultural and Social Significance

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com documents a period when faith-based filmmaking was developing into a more organized commercial category.

Sherwood Pictures helped demonstrate several principles that other independent Christian filmmakers would continue to use: modest production budgets, clearly identified audiences, church-based promotion, volunteer support, partnerships with experienced distributors, related books and study materials, and stories centered on recognizable family or personal problems.

The studio also refused to separate its commercial and religious identities. Sherwood Pictures openly described its films as ministry.

That approach inevitably limited their appeal among some audiences, but it strengthened their relationship with the audience they were primarily trying to reach.

The commercial results are difficult to dismiss. According to Box Office Mojo, Facing the Giants earned approximately $10.2 million domestically on a $100,000 production budget. Fireproof earned approximately $33.5 million domestically on a $500,000 budget. Courageous earned approximately $34.5 million during its original domestic run on a $2 million budget.

Those figures helped prove that explicitly Christian films could reach nationwide multiplexes and generate substantial theatrical revenue without conventional blockbuster budgets.

The Website as an Early Example of Anticipation Marketing

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com is also interesting simply as a piece of web-marketing history.

Today, mystery campaigns, countdowns, teaser videos and gradual reveals are commonplace on social media. In 2009, dedicated promotional websites still played a much larger role in online movie marketing.

The domain name itself was the campaign: "The Next Sherwood Movie."

It did not require visitors to remember a movie title that had not yet been announced. Instead, it targeted the question existing Sherwood fans were already asking.

The site's promotional structure converted an information gap into engagement. Visitors knew another movie was coming. They knew Sherwood's history. They knew an announcement date. What they did not know was the subject.

That missing information was precisely what kept the campaign interesting.

What TheNextSherwoodMovie.com Is Known For Today

Today the importance of TheNextSherwoodMovie.com is historical rather than commercial.

Its mystery has long since been solved. The "next Sherwood movie" became Courageous, and the film itself became another significant commercial success for Sherwood Pictures.

But the website preserves the moment before that outcome was known.

It recalls a period when a small filmmaking ministry in Albany had already surprised the movie business twice and audiences were waiting to see whether it could do so again.

The site therefore connects three stages of the Sherwood story: the grassroots beginnings represented by Flywheel, the breakthrough success of Facing the Giants and Fireproof, and the more ambitious national production represented by Courageous.

It also preserves the language Sherwood used to explain its purpose. The films were intended to entertain, but entertainment was not regarded as the final objective. Storytelling was a vehicle for ministry, and success was measured partly in terms of perceived effects on marriages, families, churches and individual religious commitments.

The Legacy of The Next Sherwood Movie

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com ultimately succeeded in promoting a question whose answer became considerably larger than the website itself.

Courageous opened nationwide, earned more than $34 million during its original domestic theatrical run, received major recognition within Christian entertainment, generated related books and ministry materials, and reinforced the Kendricks' reputation as important figures in faith-based filmmaking.

The larger Sherwood experiment also demonstrated how unconventional resources could be combined to make commercially viable films. Instead of Hollywood soundstages, there was Albany. Instead of enormous production crews, there were volunteers. Instead of conventional mass-market advertising alone, there were churches, ministry organizations, Christian media, grassroots supporters and online promotion.

That history gives TheNextSherwoodMovie.com lasting significance. It represents the promotional bridge between Fireproof and Courageous—the moment when Sherwood Pictures' audience knew another project was coming but did not yet know what it would be.

For followers of Christian cinema, independent filmmaking and early online movie promotion, the website provides a useful snapshot of an organization that had discovered an unusual formula: begin with a clearly defined audience, mobilize a community around production, make the movie for a comparatively modest amount of money, and treat the finished film not as the end of the project but as the beginning of a broader campaign.

What began as a simple question—"What is the next Sherwood movie?"—eventually became Courageous, one of the most commercially successful films to emerge from Sherwood Pictures and an important chapter in the expansion of American faith-based cinema.

TheNextSherwoodMovie.com