“Jesus Revolution” director Jon Erwin has been blown away by the public’s overwhelming reaction to his hit film, with the feature raking in more than $30 million at the box office over the past two weeks.
But it’s the near-prophetic timeline for the movie’s release that has truly left him stunned. Erwin said he’s wanted to make the movie since 2015, but, due to other projects and the COVID-19 pandemic, couldn’t get it done and released until this year.
“Jesus Revolution” tells preacher and Harvest Crusade founder Greg Laurie’s personal story of coming to faith amid the Jesus Movement, a time of massive spiritual revival in the 1960s and ’70s.
“I started really studying this last revival in America and I felt gripped, like, ‘Why can’t my generation experience something like this?'” he told CBN’s Faithwire. “The late ’60s was just a very similar time [to today] of despair — cultural despair — and division. And then that’s when God really broke through.”
Watch Erwin discuss revival, “Jesus Revolution,” and the powerful experiences he had on set:
Erwin said he was dreaming of making the movie while working on his other projects like “I Can Only Imagine,” “I Still Believe,” and “American Underdog.” Despite waiting until 2023 to release “Jesus Revolution,” Erwin now sees how God’s perfectly timed plans were afoot.
The movie’s release came as Super Bowl commercials pointed fans to Jesus, “The Chosen” reached a fever pitch, and as revivals have been breaking out at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, among other locations.
“It was just an amazing symphony of timing,” he said, noting how he personally went to witness and experience the Asbury revival for himself and was deeply moved. “I remember Greg Laurie called me and said, ‘What did it feel like?’ And I said, ‘It felt exactly like the movie.'”
Erwin continued, “The timing of the release, it just continues to blow my mind.”
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The filmmaker believes it’s possible young people today are primed for the very experience viewers see unfolding in “Jesus Revolution.” And he’s hearing incredible stories about how the movie is changing lives.
“I’ve seen posts of people getting baptized in fountains outside the theater or in a lake the next day,” Erwin said. “Or a spontaneous praise and worship service starting in the theater, and then prayer happening in the theater long after the movie wrapped.”
Even while filming “Jesus Revolution,” Erwin said he knew something was vastly different about the experience.
“We felt it on set when we were doing the baptisms,” he said. “I’ve never felt that kind of spiritual power on a day of filming ever in my life, and I think it bleeds through the screen. I think you feel it in the movie.”
Watch Erwin discuss the powerful impact of “Jesus Revolution.”
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