Journey Movie Update by Bryan Craig

You may have heard the recent podcast interview with Rocky Fleming and Sach Oliver a few weeks ago regarding the status of our Movie project, but I wanted to also write a Blog about it. 

First of all, the Script is done!  We have been talking about how to translate Journey to the Inner Chamber into a movie for quite some time now, from all different perspectives.  Some thought we needed to go all-in on Part One of the book, with the vision and castle image, almost like a Lord of the Rings epic.  Others thought the meat of our message was found in Part Two of the book, and the relationship between Gabe and the man on the Journey.  There were even thoughts of pulling some storylines from Compelled by Grace to give more depth to Gabe’s character and introduce a few more characters.  Others thought we should do a movie about a group of men going through The Journey, with all of their life challenges, and with flashes to the book along the way.  This is the creative process. 

Brian Bird, our gifted and anointed screenwriter, whom we feel certain God chose, worked through two drafts of the screenplay to bring a movie that successfully ties both Part One and Part Two of the book into a beautiful story about Abiding, Discipleship, Mentoring and working through the challenges and opposition in life.  We think those of you who are part of this ministry will love it and be satisfied with the movie version.  We also believe this movie is being prepared to reach a much broader audience, even to non-believers and other seekers. 

Now that we have our final script, we move to the next phase of this process.

A Final Production Budget

We have hired a Line Producer to put a budget on the film to help us understand the cost to produce the film.  Of course, there are some big variables, namely the key people involved in the film, like the Director and the main actors.  These do affect the budget in a big way.  But if God calls any A-list talent to this project, often, money follows as investors measure the risk based on the talent involved.  We should better understand our budget requirements in the next few weeks.  There is also a Distribution Budget that covers the cost to bring the film to theaters.  This is most often funded by Studios, who want to partner with a produced project.  However, we do have the possibility of raising the Production money and the Distribution money.

 Meeting with Potential Investors

In the next few months, we will be meeting with potential investors, some of whom are already part of our ministry and would love to see The Journey spread far and wide through this movie.  Others are Friends of Influencers who know about our ministry through friends and associates and will want to see the positive message of this movie, and impact of Influencers, get the funding it needs to move forward.  As you may know, our movie project is unique in that people who feel called to support this can either make a tax-deductible Donation to Influencers Global Ministries OR they can become an investor in Journey Feature Films, with a potential return on their investment.  We don’t exactly know how the funds will come, but we believe this is God’s project and He always provides Provision for His visions.

Prayer

We continue to undergird everything with prayer, and we are totally dependent upon God in this project.  Even as things do not move as fast as we would like, we are reminded of Personal Abandonment and Absolute Trust.  We have seen Him honor our faithfulness and obedience time and time again.  Just this week, Kevin Ernst told me a story of how he was on a walk in his neighborhood with his family and met a nice young couple.  When the woman found out Kevin was in the film business, she said her dad was a casting director and they both thought, “What a small world!”  Then Brian Bird was talking with Kevin a few days later and told him he wanted to recommend a casting director.  Guess what!?  It was the same guy.  Yes, this is how God has been guiding this project from the very start.  It gives us even more faith and confidence to stay the course.  Speaking of prayer, we have a weekly Prayer Zoom call for the movie every Friday at Noon Central Time.  If you would like to join us, contact Melinda Pluenneke at [email protected] to be added to the list and get the Zoom link.

Location Scouting and Script Reading

In the next few months, we will continue to do location scouting, as we determine if we will film this movie in Arkansas or if another location makes better sense.  We are also planning to gather our team and our Board to do a Live reading of the script to start bringing the story to life and to evaluate the flow and rhythm of the storytelling.  We will record this to be shared later with movie insiders.

We are so excited and optimistic about this project, and we want you to be, as well.  Please pray about how you can be involved in this move of God.  Check out our Movie page on the website or our Facebook and Instagram pages.

And if you’ve been through The Journey, we need you to consider guiding a Movie Journey Group.  These are the hundreds of Journey Groups that we predict will start from moviegoers who want to know more and go deeper.