The notes and emails received testify to the power of The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis to impact its audience. Here is one such message from a woman in Florida:

“I just have to share the fruit of your obedience to Christ! Our broken, recovering-from-strong-addiction, 52-year-old son attended the movie with us. We were both so moved by the quote from Weight of Glory. Our son has downloaded the sermon and cannot put it down. We are seeing the movie again today because ‘He must!’ This broken man has lost so much, including the joy of the Lord. There has been a shift in him this week, and he is in awe of ‘this new joy’ and ‘call to share with others.’ There are no ordinary people! This mama is so very grateful that God is showing up and answering years of prayers.”

“This type of response is precisely what we had hoped and prayed for,” said Max McLean, founder and artistic director of Fellowship for Performing Arts.   “In addition, we received numerous endorsements from Christian leaders such as best-selling author Tim Keller, cultural commentator Os Guinness, the mathematician and former Lewis student John Lennox and author Philip Yancey among many more.”

And this enthusiasm is guiding us as we look ahead.

Even before this first film had been distributed, FPA’s board took the forward-looking step to authorize a campaign to create three more films in the coming five years. That is an ambitious goal. Max is working now with film director Norman Stone to identify scripts for development and expects to announce our next film project in the spring of 2022. 

“At our core, FPA is a theatre company, and it will remain so,” Max said. “However, film has a much farther reach than live theatre.  For example, more than twice as many people saw our movie last month as in three years of touring The Most Reluctant Convert.”

Despite the glitch of showing The Making of bonus feature before rather than after the movie, which led to some confusion, the reviews were uniformly strong, especially because of the tight focus on Lewis’ complex spiritual journey from atheism to Christianity. In addition, the film received four extensions from a one-night event to run Nov. 3 through Dec. 2 and drew nearly 250,000 viewers in the U.S. Canada and the U.K.