Long gone are the days of a Nicolas Cage movie breaking $100 million at the box office. In fact, even when he tries to make a religious-themed movie like LEFT BEHIND that should cater to an audience thirsty for films in their spiritual wheelhouse, he still manages to barely register as a blip on the charts. LEFT BEHIND has grossed just $13 million domestically, still $3 million shy of it’s $16 million budget. But, apparently the international grosses are making the movie worth the effort.
Producer and writer Paul Lalonde took to the Facebook page for LEFT BEHIND to address the questions as to whether there would be sequels to the film. Apparently someone is asking because Lalonde wrote a fairly long response. Read what he had to say below.
Hello everyone. Of all the questions I get asked on a daily basis, none is more common than “will there be a sequel to Left Behind?”. Well, until now, my answer has been a bit evasive. “We plan to”, or “we have always planned to” or “we’ll see”. Well, last night, I went to bed with that same question on my mind. You see, it’s not just you asking me the question, it’s me asking myself the question too. I woke up in the night, and for whatever reason, the answer seemed clear. Of course we are! I’m not sure what it might look like or how big it might be. But we will continue the story. We have to. The entire plan starting several years ago was to “introduce” the rapture in the first movie and then to follow the characters through the tribulation, sticking to the story from the original book series and giving the world an idea of what the tribulation might look like. That was the plan, and it needs to remain the plan. It’s the plan I have laid out to a lot of people, including Dr. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. There have been a lot of obstacles thrown in the way of this first movie and, in hindsight, it was a miracle that it ever got made. And when I say miracle, I mean it literally. So there you have it: “yes, the Left Behind film series will continue, with the goal of telling the whole story”. It may be a challenge, but we will find a way.
The first round of LEFT BEHIND films had Christian superstar Kirk Cameron in the lead and were somewhat successful. The rebooted film tried to up the ante with Cage in the lead but alas that didn’t work. It is strange to see no mention of Nicolas Cage for the potential sequel, but maybe now that he has cashed his paycheck, Cage is off to smaller and worse films.
Our review for LEFT BEHIND came in at a paltry zero out of ten, so the words of Lalonde may be nothing more than wishful thinking. Here’s hoping audiences find other movies to invest their time and faith in rather than two distinct and terrible series based on the same book.