I had seen two previous showings of the movie Fireproof prior to its release last weekend. Starring Kirk Cameron, Fireproof is the latest movie produced by Sherwood Baptist Church, in Albany, Georgia (population 164,000). Albany is a nice town, and Sherwood is a great Southern Baptist Church, but even churches in metropolises like Atlanta or Dallas are not in the business of producing successful Hollywood productions. Sherwood Baptist, however, has done this before–their movie Facing the Giants was a commercial success when it was released in 2006 (it ended up grossing more than 10 million in theatrical release).
I was even more impressed with Fireproof than with Facing the Giants (which is high praise indeed, because I was a big fan of that movie).
The audience a movie enjoys in its first weekend of release has tremendous impact on the ultimate success of a movie because it determines how long it stays in theaters and how many theaters ultimately will show it across the country. Consequently, you can imagine how eager I was to open my USA Today on Tuesday morning, Sept. 30, to see how Fireproof fared in its opening weekend, Sept. 26-28.
I was delighted to read that Fireproof debuted at No. 4 on the most-viewed movie list of this past weekend. Fireproof opened with $6.8 million in box office receipts. The film was on 839 screens across the country, for a per-screen average of $8,111.00, which is the second-highest weekend box office average of 2008 for films released on less than 1,000 screens (Hannah Montana in 3-D was the highest.)
Fireproof is the story of a firefighter whose marriage is on the verge of a breakup. As he belatedly seeks to save his marriage, he discovers it may well be too late. It is a powerful and well-made movie that will strengthen the marriage of the overwhelming majority of those who see it.
Also, it shows that there is a viable and untapped market for family-friendly films and films with a strong faith message. For more information about the movie and where it is currently being shown, go to www.fireproofthemovie.com.