Alex Kendrick, the Man Behind Fireproof

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Alex Kendrick, the Man Behind Fireproof

Alex Kendrick and his brother Stephen are the men behind the current movie phenomenon at Sherwood Baptist Church. Using the congregation to make their films, the Kendricks have created three movies, including the shockingly successful Facing the Giants. In case you have been under a rock (or didn't read last week's issue of New Man), their latest movie, Fireproof, has been in the top 10 movie in box office revenue since it released two weeks ago, again shocking the Hollywood establishment. New Man got together with writer/producer/director Alex Kendrick to discuss the film.

New Man: How do you feel so far about the success of Fireproof?

Kendrick: It's very exciting. You pour yourself into a project for a year and a half and then when it comes time for it to be released you watch what god does with it. It's always very fulfilling and exciting to see lives being changed.

New Man: For our readers who haven't seen it yet, could you explain what the movie is about?

Kendrick: Fireproof follows a couple that has been married for seven years. He is a firefighter and she works as a PR person for a local hospital. They don't have any kids because they've been focusing on their careers, which are going well for both of them. But their marriage has kind of gone south and they've stopped focusing on one another and gotten very selfish. Neither of them know the Lord. They determine after a blowup fight that brings a lot of their issues to the surface to get a divorce. When the husband's father learns this he challenges his son to hold off on the divorce proceedings for 40 days. Then he gives him a handwritten book called The Love Dare that challenges him to do something every day to help save his marriage. It turns out to be the hardest thing he has ever done but in the end it turns his life around.

New Man: Why did you and Stephen decide to make a movie this movie about marriage?

Kendrick: We have spent what we call a "season of prayer" before each movie that we have made. My brother Stephen and I would ask God for his direction and favor, and after Facing the Giants was over, I was jogging around the block and I had this idea for the "Love Dare" concept. I told Stephen about it and he confirmed it and said he also felt that was where the Lord was leading us. So we began writing this script in hopes that we could life up the Lord's standard of marriage. Our culture has been watering down and redefining what marriage is and if you allow marriage to crumble then families and communities will suffer. So we wanted to lift up again a standard for marriage that most people can relate to.

New Man: Have you heard any stories about how the movie has touched people?

Kendrick: Well, if you go to our Web site at www.fireproofthemovie.com and click on the "Stories" tab, there are already 1,100 stories posted. I just read one before I picked up the phone to call you about a man that watched it and realized he didn't know where he would end up if he died, and he ended up accepting Christ yesterday. We're hearing stories ever day about people who are rededicating their lives and marriages. There are lots of apologies going on and more salvations than I can count. It's coming in by the truckloads. There's just thousands and thousands of pages about these stories of people whose lives are being changed.

I heard one two days ago of an older couple that was sitting in the front of a movie theater. There were also some people in a church group there, and when it was over they saw this couple weeping together and kneeling together and hugging and praying with each other. It really is overwhelming the number of stories that are coming in.

New Man: How has this experience been different from making Facing the Giants?

Kendrick: Every time you make a movie you apply to it things you missed or messed up in the last one. We were able to improve upon the movie making process this time, not only because we had a much bigger budget, but also making it more efficient and professional. For me, every time I direct I get better. We're still using amateur actors except for Kirk, but now we're also learning about what other Christian actors are out there that we can us in the future. As I'm directing I'm learning to use things like backstory and stories from people's own lives to inspire our actors for their scenes. When I made our first movie, Flywheel, I would just tell them what had to happen in each scene. I suppose to people that have been to film school that sounds very amateurish, but we're learning by doing.

New Man: You've also released a book, The Love Dare, to go along with the movie. Tell us about that.

Kendrick: I got the idea for the movie and the book at the same time, when I was jogging around the block in late 2005. Stephen and I wrote the movie script first, and while I was working on editing the script, Stephen was researching all the principles of love in the Scriptures. When we were done with the film, we began writing the that centered around this 40-day journey. We went to an old house together and put up all his research on the walls. We began working our way through the research and constructing the book. It was very difficult, especially because when you begin exposing yourself to everything God has to say about love and what he expects husbands to do particularly, you realize all the ways you come up short. We realized that this lesson is a really great thing, but a really hard thing, because it's a death to selfishness in your life. We don't realize how selfish we are a lot of the time.

When we finished we had The Love Dare, which is a 40-days journey to learn how to love your spouse, but with principles that can be applied for a lifetime.

New Man: A lot of men really want to do something significant for the God's kingdom as you have done. How did you start on this path?

Kendrick: We grew up wanting to do this and made comedic videos and kids and teens. After we had finished seminary and were called into ministry, the desire to use this avenue of storytelling became even stronger because it had a purpose. When Stephen and I ended up together at Sherwood on staff, we expressed the desire and the pastor wasn't against it, but he wasn't sure about it. Thankfully he let us go on to do it.

It's a really good marriage. Our pastor wants to reach the world from Albany, Georgia, and we wanted to impact people by telling stories through movies. We have a great model of how to use the strengths of the Body of Christ with modern technology to do something that wasn't possible before. We consider ourselves very blessed to be at Sherwood, because it's not every pastor that would be open to doing this.

New Man: Do you have more movies planned for the future?

Kendrick: Absolutely, we have a lot more ideas. At this point when Fireproof is in the top 10, we are starting to get calls from people in the industry. We have better profit margins than Hollywood, and people want to know how we're doing it. We think that's a testimony to God pouring out his love and opening doors for us.

We do want to make more movies but we have to learn that there's a breathing period. You pour yourself into these movies and writing, directing, editing them and then watching their success, but then you have to take a break to focus on your marriage and your family and pour back into the church. So we're going to take a break here for the next few months before we get started again on a new movie.