Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 07/19/23

Shawn Boskie is livin’ enough dreams for two fellas. In 1998 he concluded a successful nine-year Major League Baseball pitching career that included stints with the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies, California Angels, and Baltimore Orioles. These days he’s a prolific filmmaker. Divine Influencer, his latest film for Pure Flix (dropping this August) comes complete with a title that neatly summarizes the sort of impact he hopes to have on the culture.

JWK: You’ve had success in baseball, of course. How did you make the journey from baseball to the film business?

Shawn Boskie: Thank you for saying that, first of all. It didn’t always feel like success. It felt more like I was getting beat up regularly – but I’m really grateful that the Lord allowed me to do that and have great fond memories, at this point, of a lot of the high points.

During the course of my professional career, it wasn’t unusual for people to ask me what I’m going to do when I have to get a real job. So, probably five years before the end of my career, my wife and I went and attended a weekend seminar on God’s Plan for Work. We did all the personality profiles and we kind of studied the evolution of work and how you find your rightful path based on your interests, skill set and so forth. Then at the end, we were instructed to write our mission statement based on what we learned. I wrote that I would be involved with something that had a larger social impact (and) an eternal significance.

I remember thinking at the time that was accurate but I didn’t know how that would translate to my job. Fast forward, some years later I joined an organization at the end of my baseball career and got involved investing in some private companies and so forth but my daily job was at a nonprofit legal advocacy organization called Alliance Defending Freedom. I was raising money for that nonprofit and I really loved it because it was really impactful work. Lawyers were arguing cases in front of courts across the country for religious freedom, for traditional family values, for sanctity of life, things that I really care about. Some of these cases would go to the Supreme Court and have vast influence. It dawned on me that I was doing something at that time with a larger social impact (and) an eternal significance. So, it was a rewarding time. For ten-plus years I was working there.

I met one of the founders of Pure Flix here in Scottsdale, Arizona. We became friends and got together from time to time. Then I ended up joining Pure Flix for largely the same reason – larger social reach (and) with an eternal significance to it. So, I joined in. We were releasing theatrical movies, several each year. Then we started a streaming platform (also) called Pure Flix.

JWK: What was your role at Pure Flix?

SB: I was raising money for all these movies and for the streaming platform. So, we’re talking about $150-$170 million over the course of about six years. That’s because I happened to have relationships with Christians that cared about the culture and recognized that storytelling is a main way to influence people. That’s why I was there too. So, I had no conflict in raising money for these movies even though some of them didn’t perform very well. That still hurt – but some of them did well and people were rewarded. 

JWK: Were you involved with the God’s Not Dead movies?

SB: Yeah, God’s Not Dead, Do You Believe?, The Case for Christ, Redeeming Love…

JWK: How did you go from your role at Pure Flix to starting your own production company?

SB: We ended up selling the streaming platform to Sony in 2020. I started Canyon Productions shortly after that. My objective was to make faith films that had God in the story instead of just as a reference point or not in the story at all.

JWK: Is there any significance to the name Canyon Productions?

SB: Well, I live in Arizona. The Grand Canyon’s here, of course. I’m pretty heavily involved with Grand Canyon University where I graduated…It was really just a working title.

JWK: You started Canyon Productions in 2021, right?

SB: Yes.

JWK: Films you have released through Pure Flix since then have included God’s Not Dead: We The People, Redeeming Love, Unlikely Angel, An Angelic Christmas, Heaven Sent, God’s Country, as well as the TV series Saved by Grace. You also have two films coming up soon – Divine Influencer and Finding Faith. You’re almost like the Aaron Spelling of Pure Flix.

SB: It’s all held in an open hand because I didn’t set out to get into the film industry. I just really cared about telling stories that would point people toward the Lord. This happened to be a really good platform to do that – but I don’t take anything for granted. There are changes happening all the time in the industry. We have to be able to adapt and figure out how to distribute films and find out what the audience is really looking for too.

JWK: Tell me about Divine Influencer.

SB: Divine Influencer is the story of a young twentysomething social media influencer that goes from riches to rags when her parents cut her off financially because they love her – but she doesn’t understand that. She’s pretty self-absorbed but she still happens to be a lovely character (and eventually) she realizes what real influence actually is. It’s when you’re influencing people in a good way, in a positive way, not just on where to shop or what to wear and those sorts of things. I liked it right from the beginning. I worked with Shari Rigby and her production team. They made a wonderful movie that is completed now and will be available (on Pure Flix this Friday). I’m looking forward to releasing that because I think it’s gonna have a great message for everybody right now. With social media such a vast influence in our society, this is a really good message (about) what true influence really is.

JWK: How about Finding Faith (streaming in November)?

SB: The movie Finding Faith is about a young woman, a Christian advice columnist, that starts to suffer her own crisis of faith in God when her marriage is starting to fall apart and then suffers the loss of her parents and starts asking some tough questions. This is on the heels of someone writing in to say “I’m starting to doubt my faith”…and she’s going through that same thing. So, this is her journey facing some really tough circumstances and then seeing God at work in her life. That’s the thing I like about these movies – that, by the end, you see where characters have grown (and how) God has done things.

JWK: Is there a formula for your success?

SB: These have been modest budgets that are designed to work fast. Every platform needs original content. So, you want to work pretty quickly and efficiently to get a pretty good quality product (out) there. What I care about is how does the story reflect God at work in our lives? Budgets can be anywhere between half-a-million dollars and a million-and-a-half dollars each. You know, if there’s a good output mechanism and you keep your audience in mind then you can do one a month. Maybe even more. Scale up! So, we’ll see how God unfolds that adventure in front of me.

JWK: Where do you see you company in about ten years? What would you like your legacy to be in this industry?

SB: Oh, my goodness! Good question! Well, you know, it’s interesting because I talk to filmmakers every day. They have a deep passion to tell stories and a lot of them do have stars in their eyes. They want to make a movie like The Sound of Freedom that has a really broad reach, that goes viral – or a movie like God’s Not Dead that was made for under a million dollars and did $61 million at the box office and then reached so many people around the globe. That’s what everybody likes to do. I’m not certain that that’s what I would aspire to accomplish. I’d love to make five to ten movies a year that encourage people in their faith. If ten years from now I’ve done that, boy, that could be quite a catalogue to have out there! But, like I said, I’m gonna hold that with an open hand.

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.