The market for faith-based films and shows is expanding massively, with The Chosen delivering huge numbers in theaters and at home,

and Mel Gibson finally putting together his long-awaited follow-up to The Passion of the Christ. Released in 2004, it remains the highest-

grossing faith-based film of all time, with a global box office take of more than $600 million. The second-highest-grossing faith-based film,

 

 

however, was released only a decade later: Heaven Is for Real. The movie is headed to a new streaming home soon, which will give a new generation of fans the opportunity to

 

 

Heaven is for Real will debut on Netflix in November. Co-written and directed by Randall Wallace, who remains best known for his Oscar-nominated screenplay for Braveheart, Heaven Is for Real features Greg Kinnear and Yellowstone star Kelly Reilly, along with Thomas

 

Haden Church and Margo Martindale. It made more than $100 million at the worldwide box office against a reported budget of $12 million, making it a massive hit. But this is sort of the norm for the faith-based genre, which consistently produces movies on restrained budgets, and invariably finds its target audience.

 

 

Thanks to modern marketing techniques, movies produced by indie outfits such as Angel Studios have successfully delivered results. Last year, the animated film The King of Kings became a sleeper hit, grossing over $75 million worldwide. And a year before that, the film Jesus Revolution broke through the clutter and grossed more than $50 million domestically against a reported budget of $15 million. It was distributed by Lionsgate, the studio that will also release Gibson’s The Resurrection of the Christ in two installments next year.

Heaven Is for Real features Kinnear and Reilly as the parents of a young boy who undergoes emergency surgery, after which he awakens with a knowledge of Heaven. The movie received mixed reviews upon release, and has settled at a 52% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “Heaven Is for Real boasts a well-written screenplay and a talented cast, but overextends itself with heavy-handed sequences depicting concepts it could have trusted the audience to take on faith.” Kinnear was coming off of his acclaimed role in the Oscar-winning Little Miss Sunshine, but Reilly was still a few years away from hitting the stratospheric fame that came along with Yellowstone.

 

check it out.