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Heaven is For Real

April 19, 2014 by  

Heaven is For Real, Heaven Is For Real is to The Grudge as God’s Not Dead is to The Ring. As the first major Christian-centric film to drop after the surprisingly successful God’s Not Dead, Heaven Is For Real got to capitalize on being the next portion of a newly popular dish. If you recall, The Ring kick-started the Japanese horror remake fad back in 2002, doing so with a $15 million debut but legging it to $129m domestic. The next one to cash in on that, The Grudge, scored an absurd $39m opening weekend in October 2004 before ending with $110m. Such is sometimes the benefit of being next at bat, as Iron Man 3 can tell you. Anyway, if God’s Not Dead possibly made the Christian drama into a somewhat more popular sub-genre, then Heaven Is For Real is the first one to capitalize accordingly. Which somewhat explains how a Greg Kinnear-led drama earned $7.85 million yesterday.

Releasing a religious-themed film, especially a family-friendly one somewhat dealing with resurrection (it’s about young boy who claims to have seen heaven following a near-death experience), over the Easter holiday, has its advantages. Many businesses and most (all?) schools were closed on Friday, which meant bigger business for family films and offerings such as this. So yes, the Sony Sony production opened on Wednesday with $3.7 million, earning another $3.3m on Thursday and now bringing its three-day total to $14.84m. Considering its subject matter, Heaven Is For Real should have a less terrible multiplier than might otherwise be expected considering that Friday is a holiday and Sunday is Easter. Easter weekend is legendary for some horrible multipliers, as The Hanna Montana Movie (2009) and African Cats (2011) are the third and fourth most front loaded weekends of all-time.

I’m going to be a chicken and not predict the five-day total, because it really could go either way. So let’s say between $22m and $31m for the five-day debut (Sony is officially predicting $27m). But considering the film’s $12m budget and strong word-0f-mouth among the targeted demographic, this one is already a big hit. Chalk it up to the obvious buzz around God’s Not Dead (which should end the weekend just under $50m by the way) and the usual church-centric advertising that helps sell films like this, along with the presence of honest-to-goodness known actors like the always terrific Greg Kinnear and Thomas Hayden Church.

The film earned nearly as much on Friday as God’s Not Dead earned on its Fri-Sun opening weekend ($9.2m), even with the $7m worth of Wed-Thurs tickets already accounted for. Heaven Is For Real played 62% female and 49% under 35 years old. Yes, it got an A+ from Cinemascore from under-35 demos for what that’s worth. As I’ve always said, there is real money to be made from demographics that aren’t explicitly targeted as a matter of habit. This one may well have legs, and I imagine the DVD will sell like hotcakes when the time comes.

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