Brothers in the Christian Film Industry

The Christian film industry has never been so popular, thanks to the contributions of many Christian film production companies. Some of these are Sherwood Pictures, Advent Film Group, Five & Two Pictures, Vision Forum Films, Fox Faith, Cloud Ten Pictures and Big Idea Productions (just to name a few). In this article, I'll review three of the companies, and the teams of brothers who've made some of Christianity's biggest films.

I'll begin with a lesser known pair, brothers Jon and Andy Erwin who have collaborated with Vision Forum Films to produce The Mysterious Islands. The film attempts to show "where Darwin was wrong," as the cast of scientists and investigators travel to the Galápagos Islands. Known as the Erwin Brothers, they began their careers over a decade ago working as camera operators for ESPN and ABC. Together in 1999, they founded Erwin Brothers Motion Pictures in their hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

Since that time, they've produced and directed projects seen on CBS, TBN, PBS, CMT, GAC, Gospel Music Channel, iTunes, BET and many others.[1] In addition to The Mysterious Islands, the Erwin Brothers directed The Cross and the Towers in on a budget of $450,000.

Now I'll go on to Rich and Dave Christiano, who co-founded Five & Two Pictures. On a budget of a million dollars, the Christiano brothers created The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry, which is the highest grossing theatrical-released Christian film of 2009 (raking in over $1.1 million domestically). Rich Christiano has also created Second Glance, Time Changer and Unidentified, while Dave Christiano is the producer of 7th Street Theater, Me & You, Us, Forever, and the upcoming 2011 film True Champion, the story of national roller skating champion Katie Tricarico.

Finally, I'll deal with Alex and Stephen Kendrick of Sherwood Baptist Church. The success of the three films Sherwood Pictures has created, Flywheel, Facing the Giants and Fireproof, is stunning. In addition to being associate pastors at the church, they co-wrote The Love Dare as a book companion to Fireproof's marriage theme.

Article Author: J.J. Biddinger

J.J. Biddinger is a Christian writer from Jackson, Michigan. He wrote for Wikipedia for over a year, maintains The Phenomenal Blog of J.J. (For the King), and contributes articles on various topics for BlogCritics Magazine.

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