‘God’s Not Dead’ grosses $8.5 million during debut weekend

Harold Cronk, right, along with Pastor Jim Peterson of Cornerstone Baptist Church.

The movie “God’s Not Dead” grossed $8.5 million at the box office during its national weekend debut, ranking it as No. 5 following, in order, “Divergent”, “Muppets Most Wanted”, “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” and “300: Rise of an Empire”.

The Pure Flix production was directed by Harold Cronk of Amber Township. Cronk is co-owner of 10 West Studios of Manistee and wrote and directed the “Mickey Matson” film series, which was filmed mostly in Mason and Manistee counties.

See MCP’s review and synopsis of the film here.

The movie debuted at the Carmike Harbor Cinema Thursday night and has been playing throughout the weekend locally.

Cronk was at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Pere Marquette Township Sunday night where he answered questions from the audience, most of whom had seen the film that afternoon.

The audience asked a variety of questions. Some about the film, about Cronk’s faith and also about his career.

Cronk said the intention of the film was to produce a high quality film about faith which could open a dialogue.

“We just made a firm decision that if we are going to do this we were going to make the absolute best work of art that we can with the tools we have,” he said about making the film.

Cronk also talked about working with Willie and Korrie Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” fame. The couple made a cameo in the film. He said they were genuine people who live openly about their faith. He also said working with the Christian rock group Newsboys was a great experience.

When asked about if Hollywood was going to make more films about faith, Cronk said that he believes there are some people in the movie industry that realize that there is an audience beyond Los Angeles and New York that would like to see more family friendly and/or faith based films.

He said he will soon be leaving to London where the film will be debuting there.

– Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief