Andrew Erwin wants to create films that change people's lives.
With his brother Jon Erwin and partner Kevin Downes, Erwin has produced a steady stream of popular and inspiring films including the comedy Moms' Night Out (2014), starring Patricia Heaton; sports drama Woodlawn (2015), with Sean Astin; the breakout hit I Can Only Imagine (2018), starring Dennis Quaid; and football success story American Underdog (2022), with Zachary Levi and Anna Paquin.
His faith-oriented films have included the love-and-loss drama I Still Believe (2020), documentary The Jesus Music (2022), and Jesus Revolution (2023), about a spiritual movement that gained ground across America (and which starred Jonathan Roumie, Jesus from The Chosen).
In 2024, the Erwin brothers' Kingdom Story Company, a division of Lionsgate, released Ordinary Angels, the true story of a hairdresser (Hilary Swank) who rallies her community to save the life of a young girl facing a life-threatening illness.
It was my privilege to talk recently with Erwin about his upcoming release White Bird, about his faith and about his other ongoing projects.
“Everything I do, I stand strongly behind,” he said, “because I believe exactly what the film is saying.”
A War Story With a Focus on the Positive
For example, there's the World War II drama White Bird, directed by Marc Forster and released by Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company, and scheduled for wide release in theaters on October 4.
White Bird shows how a single act of kindness can live on forever, changing lives for the better. The film is a sequel of sorts to the acclaimed 2017 film Wonder, about a homeschool boy (Jacob Tremblay) with a rare facial deformity who deals with bullies, but also finds friends, when he enters a private middle school.
In White Bird, when a grandmother (Helen Mirren) learns that her young grandson Julian (Bryce Gheisar) was one of the Wonder bullies, she tells him a story from her own childhood: As a young Jewish girl growing up in France during World War II, she had faced possible imprisonment and even death at the hands of the Nazis.
But her life had been saved by Julien (Orlando Schwerdt), a young boy who hid her for more than a year in his parents' barn.
Gillian Anderson also stars, as Julien's mother.
“The scene from the film that really got me,” Erwin said, “...was when the Nazis came to school to round up all the Jewish kids and take them to what they claimed would be a reunion with their parents, but what would really turn out to be a concentration camp.
"The priest at the school, who served as headmaster, and one of the nuns who taught the children, both stepped up to defend the Jewish children. The nun said, 'I go with my kids!' and hopped up into the truck -– knowing that she was likely going to her death in a concentration camp.”
That scene, Erwin thought, really grabbed the audience, leaving the viewer just floored.
“When an act of kindness can cost you your life,” he said, “it can become a miracle!”
The white bird is significant, Erwin explained, because it represents a kind of saving grace, a nod from heaven to assure the girl in hiding that she's not forgotten. In the film, young Julien is the “white bird” that saves the young woman who would someday become grandmother to Julian.
A Christmas Classic Comes to Theaters Everywhere
White Bird isn't the only movie that Erwin has produced in the last year.
Again coming from Kingdom Story Company and Lionsgate, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever will be released in theaters on Nov. 8, 2024 (with some previews the weekend before).
“It's based on the beloved Christmas classic book that so many of us grew up reading together!” Erwin exclaimed. “And Dallas Jenkins from The Chosen directed this film for us. I just watched the final version the other day –- and it's the best Christmas season film I've seen since Elf.
"It's just very much in that same kind of spirit: a whimsical story, but the Gospel is so clear in it!
"It's a story about a family called the Herdmans, that are like the bad kids out there in today's society. The Christmas pageant hasn't changed for 75 years in this little town of Emmanuel. And while it seems like the Herdmans are burning it to the ground, they're actually helping people find the true meaning of Christmas.
"It's a beautifully told story; Dallas has created something so charming!”
What Prepared Andrew Erwin for a Career Making Such Wholesome Films?
Erwin was, he reported, raised in a Christian home. His father, Hank Erwin, was a talk-show host on a Christian radio station on the Crawford Broadcasting Network, based in Alabama and heard throughout the Southeastern United States.
Erwin said: “I grew up in a Christian environment, but I always thought Christianity was system of doing good and being a good person. It wasn't until I came home after my second year of college that I had really changed.
"God brought me to a place where I recognized that I didn't know what to do with the person I wanted to be, versus the person I was. I didn't know how to find redemption.”
Someone had challenged Andy Erwin, insisting that he needed to know Jesus in a personal way.
“So, at that moment,” he recalled, “when I kind of fell on my knees and said 'God, I'm tired of saying that Jesus died for the whole world. I'm ready to say that Jesus died for me!'”
Erwin was on the right track at the age of 21; but he didn't yet know what he should do, or what God wanted him to do. All he had was a camera –- and he didn't know what he could do with that.
“So God showed me,” Erwin said. “He gave me a dream: What if we make movies?"
Along the way, finding his voice through his faith, Erwin recalled, “God just gave me a passion to tell stories of redemption. That captured my heart 25 years ago!”
Another Outlet for Erwin's Optimistic Faith: His Personal Podcast
Not content only to spread his faith on film, Erwin has a podcast with his brother Jon called The Storytellers.
“We're just beginning Season Two," he said. "It's available wherever you get podcasts: Apple, Spotify, and other sites. It's basically a collection of conversations about the storytellers we love, and the stories that changed them.
"So we just invite a lot of our friends on. The Storytellers shares conversations that we have all the time, but we simply let people be a 'fly on the wall.'"
The newest episode of The Storytellers had just launched a few days before our conversation and featured an interview with American actor Gary Sinise, whom Erwin described as “one of my heroes.” Sinise had starred in Andy Erwin's 2020 film I Still Believe.
“He's been a legend,” Erwin said, “since his days in Forrest Gump!”
The podcast is also on YouTube.
The Storytellers podcast will feature a wide range of guests in the coming year, including The Chosen creator/director Dallas Jenkins. Erwin hopes you'll check it out.
Image: Helen Mirren as Grandmère in White Bird: A Wonder Story. Photo Credit: Larry Horricks
Kathy Schiffer writes regularly for the National Catholic Register and Catholic World Report, and for other Catholic publications including Evangelization and Culture, Crisis Magazine, Aleteia, Zenit, the Michigan Catholic, and Legatus Magazine. She’s worked for Catholic and other Christian ministries since 1988, as radio producer, director of special events and media-relations coordinator.
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