With “War Room” at No. 1, the summer box office is ending on a blessed note.
The Christian drama topped the four-day Labor Day weekend with $12.6 million in a little more than 1,500 theaters, according to box-office tracking firm Rentrak. Made on a budget of only $3.5 million, the PG-rated film earned $27.9 million in the first two weekends of release.
“War Room,” about a crumbling marriage redeemed by prayer, is the highest-grossing faith-based film since “When the Game Stands Tall” opened to $8.4 million in August 2014 (netting $30.1 million total).
Fewer films in 2015
Although 2014 had a number of hits with Christian themes — including “Son of God” ($59.7 million), “God’s Not Dead” ($60.8 million) and “Heaven Is for Real” ($91.4 million) — there have been fewer faith-based offerings in 2015, which may have contributed to the success of “War Room,” according to Rentrak senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
“It’s weird, because last year was called the ‘year of the Bible’ at the box office. All those did well and that was a really underserved audience this year,” Dergarabedian said.
‘Huge market’
“There is a huge market for faith-based movies and Sony took perfect advantage of the date so they didn’t get lost in the summer shuffle. If this came out a week or two within ‘Jurassic World,’ it might be a different story.”
“War Room” is the latest smash for co-writers Alex and Stephen Kendrick. The Kendrick brothers’ other religious movies “Courageous” in 2011 and “Fireproof” in 2008 both produced healthy returns ($34.5 million and $33.5 million, respectively).
The box-office might of “War Room” is made all the more impressive by the fact that it includes no stars and received a weak critical reception (just 36 percent positive reviews on aggregate site RottenTomatoes.com, compared to a striking 90 percent approval rating from audiences).
Overall box-office receipts were down 17 percent from the 2014 Labor Day weekend. Still 2015 wound up with the second-best summer box office ever, pulling in $4.48 billion worldwide.
(Religion News Service)
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