It’s been quite the year for Christian movies. We’ve seen the story of a 4-year-old boy who says he went to heaven make $91.4 million (Heaven Is for Real), a class in Apologetics 101 haul in $60.8 million (God’s Not Dead) and a repackaging of a History Channel special collect $59.7 mil (Son of God).
Can the reboot of Left Behind come anywhere close when it officially rolls out wide to nearly 1,800 theaters tomorrow? I’ll let my friend and colleague Bob Hoose talk specifically about this highly anticipated new movie in his review. (Look for it later today.) For a moment, though, I want to take a look back.
The Left Behind series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, was a runaway phenomenon in evangelical Christian circles for a dozen years—beginning with the release of the first book (Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days) in 1995 to its last (Kingdom Come: The Final Victory) in 2007. The series sold 65 million copies (and counting) and spurred a slew of spinoff series, graphic novels, children’s books, albums and even a video game.
So when Left Behind: The Movie was released in 2001, there was a great deal of interest from both evangelicals and the world at large at just how good and how big the thing would be.
But before the movie was even released, Tim LaHaye filed a suit against makers Namesake Entertainment and Cloud Ten Pictures. Once out, it was savaged by critics (it currently has a 16% “freshness” rating on rottentomatoes.com) and was described by The Washington Post as “a blundering cringefest.” It was largely ignored by the public, earning just $4.2 million to barely make back its meager budget.
Paul LaLonde, CEO of Cloud Ten Pictures, acknowledged that he made a few missteps with the original—missteps he aimed to correct this time around.
“When comparing this movie to the original—I set the bar really low, so this movie looks great,” he told the New York Post.
The Left Behind reboot is certainly a bigger endeavor than the original, what with its $16 million budget (still tiny compared to the standard Hollywood blockbuster, but four times the original) and Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage in the cockpit. LaHaye and Jenkins seem to like it better, with Jenkins giving the film “two enthusiastic thumbs up” (according to the official Left Behind movie Facebook page).
Will the moviegoing public agree? What do you think today, before you see it? (And once you see it, come back and tell us what you think then!)
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