People need stories about real people with real problems. This CT article explains why a film like “Fireproof” succeeded, while “Billy” failed:
Two years ago, Facing the Giants, a low-budget sports movie made by volunteers at Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, grossed $10 million on a budget of only $100,000.
This year, Sherwood scored a bigger hit when Fireproof, a marriage-in-crisis movie made for $500,000, surpassed even the $25 million take of Big Idea’s 2002 film, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. (It has currently earned $28,327,659, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.)
But while Fireproof drew large audiences, Billy: The Early Years of Billy Graham bombed. Made for a reported $5 million, the film earned just $347,000 in its first three weeks and dropped out of theaters. Fireproof averaged $8,148 per theater in its opening weekend; Billy averaged a mere $681.
