Although originally released in April, Christian movie Beyond The Mask was once again released into theaters in June. Unlike many Christian movies that often suffer from bad acting, preachy scripts, and uninteresting stories, Beyond The Mask offers something new for Christian moviegoers, with the introduction of CGI special effects and a bigger than life story.
Beyond The Mask tells the story of William Reynolds (Andrew Cheney), the chief mercenary for the British East India Company. Reynolds is double crossed by his former employer, and he escapes to the American Colonies to hide while he clears his name. Along the way, he looks for redemption while falling in love with Charlotte, a woman he has never quite been honest with. He also meets Ben Franklin while racing against the clock to stop a plot that could prevent the birth of America. The backdrop, of course, is the American Revolution.
Beyond the Mask also boasts cast member John Rhys-Davies, famous for Killing Jesus and The Lord of the Rings trilogy . With its first real distribution since its original release, Beyond the Mask earned $1 million at the box office, according to Breathe Cast .
As for the visual effects, Reel Cast Productions employed Canadian Chris Arnold to work on the 3D effects for Beyond the Mask . Luke, the Visual Effects Supervisor, had this to say about the number of special effects used in the film.
“We have 741 VFX shots currently, which totals around 65,000 frames of visual effects. This equals approximately 50.1 minutes of play time on screen. We have 27 artists on our internal team and are outsourcing some larger sequences to two other VFX post houses as well.”
The production, marketing, and distribution of Beyond the Mask was completely grassroots. It was co-written by Stephen Kendrick, who also wrote the screenplays for Courageous and Fireproof . Because of his success with those movies, and successful showings of the movie back in April, Freestyle agreed to distribute Beyond The Mask . Freestyle releasing President Mark Borde said Freestyle agreed to distribute it after it showed promise.
“About a year ago, they sent us the picture and they told us that their plan was to go out on a Gathr distribution plan to play it for one night in selected theaters around the country. They said if it did well, they would be looking for larger distribution. We looked at the picture and it had a lot of production value. We thought, let’s see what happens with Gathr. To be frank, the grosses have been phenomenal. So we let them know we were on board. We’re still hammering out the fine points and are finalizing plans now but have great faith in the picture.”
Beyond the Mask is rated PG. In addition to an appearance by Benjamin Franklin, George Washington also makes an appearance in the film.
With Fourth of July just around the corner, do you plan to see Beyond the Mask ?
[Photo Credit YouTube]
