Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
Exclusive: Breakthrough and Miracles from Heaven producer DeVon Franklin on telling inspirational stories, and what he’s working on next

Exclusive: Breakthrough and Miracles from Heaven producer DeVon Franklin on telling inspirational stories, and what he’s working on next

Last updated on: December 22, 2018 at 7:52 am by Peter T. Chattaway

Exclusive: Breakthrough and Miracles from Heaven producer DeVon Franklin on telling inspirational stories, and what he’s working on next 2018-12-22T07:52:27-08:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The “faith-based” genre has had its ups and downs over the last few years, but one person who has had consistent success in the field is DeVon Franklin. As an executive at Sony Pictures, he oversaw the production of Heaven Is for Real, a movie about a boy’s near-death experience that still ranks as the top-grossing “faith-based” film not named The Passion of the Christ. Since then, Franklin — who also preaches on the side (he even had a cameo as a preacher in the Erwin brothers’ Woodlawn) — has become an independent producer on films like Miracles from Heaven and The Star, both of which also rank among the genre’s biggest hits.

Now he’s got a new film in the works: Breakthrough, based on the true story of a boy who fell into a frozen lake and was clinically dead, and then comatose, until his mother and their church began praying for him. The film — which stars Chrissy Metz as the mother, Josh Lucas as her husband and Topher Grace as their pastor — is set for release this coming Easter, and a trailer for the film dropped a couple weeks ago.

I had a chance to speak to Franklin a few days after the trailer dropped, and I’ll be writing more about the film and my visit to the set closer to the film’s release date. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of my recent chat with Franklin.

–

I hear you had some good news this week, with the Breakthrough trailer getting many, many, many views.

DeVon Franklin: Oh yeah. It’s unbelievable. In 48 hours we got 30 million views, across all social media platforms, which is just unprecedented. I can’t even believe it. I’m like, “God!” I mean, he is doing the impossible with this trailer launch, and what’s amazing is that it’s because people keep sharing it because they’re moved by it, and that is just a great testament, to me, of how much people are connecting with the material. So it’s been a hard week in terms of all the work it took to get it out there, but let me tell you, it’s been a blessed week, seeing the results of it.

When I was in Winnipeg earlier this year, visiting the set, that was just after I Can Only Imagine had come out, so there was a lot of talk at the time about how that was a great example of how there was a lot of interest in faith-based films and so forth. Since then, a number of the faith-based films that have come out haven’t done so well, things like the Unbroken sequel and so forth. And has that been a point of concern for you, that maybe the demand might not be as high as people thought eight months ago?

DF: No! Not even a little bit. I mean, I feel great about our story, and great about what we have, and I don’t look at any one particular success or failure, per se, as a verdict on the space itself. I don’t believe that. I think it may be a commentary on that particular film, but I think too often Hollywood has a tendency to make a judgment on a genre when it just may be that the films that are being released in that genre, people are not connecting to. And if you find a film in a genre — whether it’s a comedy or a superhero film or horror film, whatever the genre is — if you find one film that breaks through, then you’re like, “Oh wow! The genre’s not dead!” So with Breakthrough, I’m excited about it, and certainly the success or failure of any of the films in this space haven’t deterred me or even reaffirmed my faith, per se. I believe what God is doing. I believe in this movie. And I believe it’s going to have its own destiny.

Some of the bigger hits in this genre have been based on best-selling books — or in the case of I Can Only Imagine, a best-selling song — whereas I don’t know how well-known The Impossible, the book that Breakthrough is based on, is. What do you attribute the instant success of the trailer to?

DF: That’s what’s amazing, and that’s what makes me so excited. I mean, listen, I kind of already am excited. You don’t have to do a whole lot to get me ready to go. But the point you made is a brilliant point, which is this is not based upon well-known IP [intellectual property], and to be able to get this many views — 30 million trailer views in 48 hours — how? Because this story is that potent. Patient dead, mother prayed, patient came back to life. And when people see this trailer, it evokes an emotion. People say they cried. They say, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I’m crying at this trailer. I’m moved. It gave me chills.” It’s producing a feeling that you rarely get in trailers nowadays. And so I think, because of that, and because of the power of the story, this is why we’re seeing this trailer have the impact as if it was based on a major piece of IP.

Heaven Is for Real and Miracles from Heaven both got into subject matter that some people have some doubts about — the whole visions-of-Heaven kind of thing — whereas Breakthrough doesn’t have that. Breakthrough is simply the boy flatlines and then he comes back. Because this story doesn’t go into that other stuff, do you think that might make this film more accessible?

DF: That’s a great question. Here’s what I think. I think people are always interested in the afterlife, and the glimpse of what is to come when we pass away. And I do think that the success of Heaven Is for Real or Miracles from Heaven certainly did that. What I think, though, is that because there have been so many books and pieces of content in that space, I think audiences are ready for something different but still supernatural, per se. So I think Breakthrough will help satisfy that desire. Because you still get the supernatural impact that this prayer had — how did it happen, and what’s going to ultimately happen to John and whatnot — yet you still base it in a story that you can relate to, and a family that you can root for. So I think that this movie is coming at the perfect time, where he doesn’t go to Heaven and he doesn’t have that experience, yet does it make it more accessible? It might, because some people can relate to that and some people can’t. I mean, I’ve had people — believers and non-believers — watch this movie already, and both groups are incredibly moved by the story, and maybe that is because there’s no Heaven experience in it. So I think we’ll have to wait to see what happens when the movie’s released to really answer that question, but as far as I can assess it now, that’s what I would determine.

Of course, a lot of people, when they hear about stories like this, they get skeptical. What kind of vetting do you do — or when they’re based on books, do you assume the publishers have already dealt with that side of things?

DF: No, when I’m doing a film based on a true story, one, I talk to the real people, and two, when we go to acquire the rights with the studio, we have a team that vets everything, if there’s other people involved in the story that we need to get their rights, we go through a very rigorous process to authenticate the story and to make sure that we’re capturing all the rights we need in order to tell the story.

So talking to people like the firefighter [who heard a voice telling him where to look after the boy disappeared into the frozen lake], that sort of thing.

DF: Yeah, totally. My writer, Grant [Nieporte] — not my writer, I don’t own him, my buddy Grant, who wrote the script — he did a tremendous [job]. I did the initial research, like, “Okay, let me talk to John, let me talk to Pastor Jason, let me talk to Joyce, let me get an idea of the story.” Once I had an idea of what the story was, I then brought Grant on board, and then Grant and I started shaping it, and he had his independent conversations with Joyce, Pastor Jason and John, and then he spoke to everyone else involved, everyone from the firefighter Tommy Shine to Chief Marlo, to really authenticate the story. And I think one of the reasons why people love the film so much is because it is authentic, and a lot of that has to do with Grant and how he wrote the script, all the research he did, and then once Roxann Dawson, our director, came on board, she just took it to a whole nother level.

You were with Sony Pictures for quite some time, and then as an independent producer, some of your first films, like Miracles from Heaven and The Star, were done with Sony. But this one’s being done with Fox. Is there any particular reason why you switched to a different studio for this?

DF: You know, when I was at Sony, I started there back in 2005, and I was there for just about ten years, and right after Heaven Is for Real came out, I felt like God was calling me to start my own company, so I did. I started Franklin Entertainment, I was in a deal with Sony, and while I was in that deal, most of the people that I had worked with and for were transitioning out of the studio. And so, the rule of thumb in the business is that, when you’re a producer, you have your relationship that oversees your deal, and if those relationships leave, your deal may be in jeopardy, because you don’t actually have the people who believe in you and you believe in them. And so, for me, once the executives started to leave, it just felt like it was time to find a new home and kind of build again. And Fox has been an awesome place, and this is the first film we’re doing together, and now they’re being sold to Disney, so that opens up a whole nother chapter, but it was just time to find a new home, and I still have an incredible relationship with Sony — we did The Star, I have other movies over there that we’re doing together — so it’s not a situation of anything negative, it just felt like, “Let me go start at a new place where I can build new relationships that can help lay the foundation for the future of my company.” And it’s a blessing to be able to do that, and to be have this movie at Fox, and to have a great relationship with where I came from, which is Sony.

Do you see Franklin Entertainment as a “faith-based” production company, or is it a company that happens to make some “faith-based” films but it would also make some other films that don’t fall under that umbrella?

DF: Yes, I would say that it is. My goal is to make uplifting, inspirational content. Some of that will fit kind of in the more of a “faith-based” box, some will not. But everything will have some inspirational value to it, whether it’s a comedy, whether it’s a drama, whether it’s any type of film. And my goal is also to make commercial material, whether that is for the big screen or the small screen or even the digital, small, cell-phone screen. That’s what I’m here to do. That’s why I get up every day, as it relates to my film career. Most people will know that I’m an author as well, so I write books. I have a new book coming out in February called The Truth about Men, so everything that I do is like, How do we uplift, how do we inspire, how do I use this incredible platform that God has given me to make the world a better place and change hearts and minds along the way in a positive way.

You talk about making films that are positive and inspirational, but of course, there are sections of the Bible that are a bit darker —

DF: Sure.

— so could you see yourself producing a film that was more like Job or Ecclesiastes, something like that?

DF: Absolutely. I mean, without a doubt. I mean, I want to produce all different types of content, and I want to produce content that is as riveting as the content in the Bible. I try to be organic and open, so I’m not trying to keep doing the same film over and over again, I’m trying to be open to the stories that I’m destined to tell. Like, for example, my next film will be about the creator of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, believe it or not.

Oh, you talked about that, back in Winnipeg.

DF: That’s right! So that’s the story of the janitor at Frito-Lay who created Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and is now a cultural juggernaut and a billion-dollar brand, and he went from being a janitor to being vice-president of multi-cultural marketing. So I love to tell stories that make you think, “Wow!” And I’m always open to the best stories to tell, and however they come to me.

Because I’m a huge Bible-movie buff, I have to ask: You made The Star last year, which is based on the Christmas story. When I met you in Winnipeg, I asked if you were developing any other Bible stories, and you said you were looking at possibly Samson and the Garden of Eden. Are those still in play? Is there anything else you’re working on?

DF: One is still in play, but the other isn’t, and there is another one that I have, but because neither has been yet announced — I’m going to be announcing one very, very soon — I can’t speak on them yet. But soon! Very, very soon.

Can you say which one is in play still?

DF: Samson is not in the works with me any longer. But the other one is.

The Garden of Eden one?

DF: Yeah. But I can’t say more. The news will be out very soon.

I’m definitely looking forward to that, then. What I remember you saying is that you were looking at doing the Garden of Eden kind of like the Jungle Book live-action movie. Is that still the concept?

DF: Yeah. Exactly. That’s all still the plan.

And that’s all you can say about it for now.

DF: That’s all I can say. But I’ll be able to talk about it very soon. Very soon!

— Breakthrough comes to theatres across North America in April 2019.

Previous Post

December 18, 2018

20 things about The Prince of Egypt, which turns 20 today.

Next Post

January 5, 2019 2019 Film Journal

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Paul say godliness with what is great gain?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Love Contentment Faith Prayer