Motion picture audiences across the country are flocking to see the latest faith-based hit, RISEN, propelling the film onto the top 20 list of best performing Christian movies of all time in just one weekend.
According to AL.com, the new movie, starring Joseph Fiennes as a Roman official trying to find the body of the crucified Jesus, opened on Feb. 19 and raked in $11.8 million over the course of the first weekend.
This was one of the best opening weekends for a Christian film – and it hasn’t slowed down since. As of Wednesday, it had already reached $14.8 million.
This is great news for a film that only cost $20 million to produce!
“The film should play well through March and into early April as it scored one of the biggest faith-based openings of all-time, placing seventh behind the likes of ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ ‘Son of God’ and ‘Heaven is for Real,’ as well as the three films in the Narnia trilogy,” Boxofficemojo reported.
RISEN was made by Sony Pictures/AFFIRM, the same studio that produced last summer’s big hit, The War Room, which opened at $11.3 million and went on to take in $67.8 million at the domestic box office before beginning a very successful run on the home entertainment market.
“This is a genre that we have embraced as a part of our studio’s DNA, and the results speak for themselves,” said Rory Bruer, Sony Pictures’ President of Worldwide Distribution. “No major studio has had more success creating films to serve faith-based audiences than Sony Pictures. Working together with our dedicated faith-based label AFFIRM Films, we will continue to lead the charge in creating films that resonate with an audience that has a huge appetite for quality faith and family oriented content.”
Those who have seen the movie are giving it the thumbs-up, including Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. who called RISEN an exception to many of the “rules” regarding faith-based films.
“Religiously themed films often have better intentions than their professional skills can support,” the Archbishop said. “RISEN is the exception — a superb cast (Joseph Fiennes, Peter Firth), an unusual and compelling story, and the world of First Century Israel vividly realized on the screen. RISEN is more than a good film for believers; it’s a great piece of film story-telling by any standard.”
RISEN’s momentum is expected to continue through the four weekends leading to Easter so if you haven’t seen the film yet, there’s still time!
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