Elektra star Jennifer Garner is set to star in Miracles from Heaven, the latest faith-based film to emerge from the Hollywood studio system.
Sony Pictures, which scored a significant hit with Heaven Is for Real in 2014, is backing Miracles, which, like Heaven Is for Real, is based on a successful book.
Written by Christy Wilson Beam and published earlier this year, Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl, Her Journey to Heaven, and Her Amazing Story of Healing — to give it its full title — is an account of the apparent miracle curing of a young Texan girl’s debilitating illness, after she reported “visiting heaven”. The director will be the Mexican-born film-maker Patricia Riggen, who is currently working on The 33, based on the 2010 Chilean miners’ rescue.
Despite a number of high-profile failures in the faith movie market, a string of solid financial successes has kept Hollywood interested. Heaven Is for Real grossed $91 million (Dh334 million) in the US for Sony, while the independently distributed God’s Not Dead made $60 million. Son of God managed $59 million for Fox, despite poor reviews and a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 21 per cent.
Faith movies’ increasing ability to attract significant acting talent was also underscored by reports that Avatar’s Sam Worthington will join the cast of The Shack, an adaptation of the successful 2007 evangelical novel by William P Young. The Shack tells the story of a man who receives a note, seemingly from God, telling him to travel to an abandoned shack where his small daughter was murdered by a serial killer, and where he experiences a divine vision. Octavia Spencer has already been cast in the film as God.
