After this past weekend’s success of Jumping The Broom (starring Paula Patton and Laz Alonso) as the film raked in over 13 Million for a budget of over 6 million, it comes to us as so surpise that news just broke that Pastor TD Jakes just got the green light for a new film titled Heaven Is For Real. This means that the executives walked in this morning, saw the numbers and immeditaely went to work.
Anyway, Deadline got the scoop, and here is the exclusive story;
EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures has acquired screen rights to the book Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip To Heaven And Back, written by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent. Joe Roth will produce with T.D. Jakes.
Burpo is a small town Nebraska pastor whose four-year old son, Colton, nearly died during an emergency appendectomy operation. As he recovered, Colton began telling his family that he went to Heaven, actually looking down at the doctors operating on him and his family praying in the waiting room. And he slowly began telling them details about his miscarried sister, and his long-dead grandfather, none of which he should have known about. He then revealed to his family what it was like during his visit in Heaven, before he was sent back to his family. He’s now 11.
Roth produced Alice in Wonderland and has the Sam Raimi-directed Oz: The Great and Powerful and Snow White and the Huntsman on the launch pad. While some might look at the contents of this book and think Roth has another fairy tale on his hands, Heaven Is For Real has caught on as affirming story with a faith-based crowd. Movie interest was high before the Burpo family entrusted the tale to producers and an exec with a track record of devotion to the Man Upstairs. Jakes is himself a Texas-based pastor, who produced and played a pastor in Jumping the Broom, which Sony Pictures opened to strong numbers this weekend through its TriStar label. Heaven Is For Real was brought in by Sony Pictures’ exec DeVon Franklin, a Christian minister who just published and has been promoting his inspirational book, Produced By Faith: Navigating the Road to Success Without Compromising Your True Self.
