Don't miss out. The annual Christmas pageant tickets are on sale now. They're advertising it on TV now? The pageant is an especially big deal this year. It's the 75th anniversary. I want to give special mention to Grace for volunteering to direct it. You did what? Oh no, did somebody die? It's worse than that, son. It's going to be the best Christmas pageant ever. Oh no, it's the Hermans. Now. The Hermans are absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. What'd they do now, dear? Break another window? Set something on fire? Steal your lunch and then punch you for not having any candy? No. Even worse. We're gonna be in your Bible play. Herdmans in church. Oh boy. We take the pageant seriously. It's about community. And tradition. What do you all suggest? That I kick the Herdmans out of the church? Yes. I want to be Mary, and Ralph wants to be Joe. And the Angel of the Lord? ME!! Ow! The Herdmen shouldn't be here. They're a poor influence. You don't look like any Mary I've seen before. Don't touch him! I'm happy to take over the part at any time. I can't just kick him out. I thought you all might be interested in one of my stops. You never told me you visited the Herdmen. I got the biggest ham for you guys. Is your mom home? Not when the sun's up. What if the Herdmans ruin this for you? They probably will. But it's not about me. Jesus was born for the Herdmans as much as he was for us. We'll be missing the whole point of the story if we turn them away. Now that's a pageant I'd actually like to see. Mother Mary puffing on a cigar. Shepherds clobbering each other with their hooks. Five bucks say they burned down the manger. Hey everybody. Welcome back to The Covenant Eyes Podcast. So good to be with you. Karen Potter here and I've got Rob Stoddard. How are you, Rob? Hey, good. Karen doing good and excited about this conversation for sure. Me too. The funny thing is we're talking about a new film coming out that is amazing. And I say that because five, maybe it was six years ago, I actually got to do this play in my local community theater and I got to play Grace. So I'm super excited. I cannot believe Dallas Jenkins and Andy pulled this together. So go ahead and introduce our guests today and let's talk more about this amazing film. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Our guest today is Andy Erwin. Andy is the co founder and chief creative officer and a filmmaker with Kingdom Story Company, maker of the film. Andy, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started with this movie. Yeah, Rob and Karen, I appreciate you. I'm actually still stuck on the fact that you play Grace. I'm geeking out about that. It's so cool. Small world. So Judy Greer filled in and your shoes admirably, but I can't wait to see the footage of you in the play. The for us, for me, my brother and I started as, filmmakers started a company, 20 years ago when faith film was just in its infancy. And we, ended up directed features and. And, some of the movies that we've done that you may know, or I Can Only Imagine my brother did Jesus Revolution. We did American

The Kurt Warner Story. And then this year we've released movies like Ordinary Angels and Unsung Hero. And and now Christmas Best Christmas Pageant Ever. So we Kingdom Story Company, is this a place where we want to facilitate stories of faith, to a broad audience, but that absolutely show what we believe in action. And we're privileged to be paired with our distribution partner in Lionsgate, and they've really invested heavily in our community. And so they're letting us do big movies. And so it's exciting. Yeah, it is awesome. And so for those listeners out there that have not had the privilege of either reading the book or, experiencing this in some other way, talk to us a little bit about what is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever all about? I was going to let you give your monologue and go ahead and act out the movie The Best Christmas Passion Ever, it's a classic book. It was originally written in 1967 as a short story for McCall's magazine. And and then it eventually was it lengthened out and made into a novel. The And became a bestseller that has been a Christmas classic for 50 years. And 1972, I think it's one of his first printed, the story is about this pageant Christmas pageant in this town of Emmanuel fictional town that has done the same thing with their Christmas pageant for 75 years, they've done it for so long that, the pageant has become what they treat as sacred and they've forgiven for forgotten the meaning of the story. And so there's these bad kids in town called the Herdmans, and the Herdmans are these feral children from the wrong side of the track tracks that, self raised, just always up to no good. They steal they smoke, they curse, they're the bad kids. But they find out about this pageant, they find out there's free food and they decide to take it over. And so they volunteer to be all the parts of Mary and Joseph and the wise men and the angel. And in the process this mother named Grace that you played in the play. She is tasked with being in charge of. And they think that because of the situation, it's going to be the worst pageant ever. And she has enough faith to stand up and be like, Jesus came for the Herdmans too, and it's going to be the best Christmas pageant ever. And because these kids had no context for the story, they step into it in such a pure way, that that they help everybody. Finally understand the true meaning of the Christmas story. And it's a, the movie Dallas Jenkins stuck the landing on this one. It's a movie that he chased for 20 years because he got a copy of the book that his wife brought home one day and they read it to their kids every year. And so he chased the rights to it until it became available. And he brought it to us and said, this is something I'm passionate about. I have to tell the story that we got behind them. And he made something that I believe is going to become a Christmas classic. It is a fantastic film. Yeah, it does. It looks wonderful. I love to, the film, Andy, the film touches on themes of redemption and community and really the true meaning of Christmas, but yet there's so much humor and light heartedness in it. It was hard to balance those two two elements in this film, For Dallas, he did such a good job with it. Very clearly understood the movie that he wanted to make. He started it off and said, I want it to feel like, a Wes Anderson film, collaborated with a Norman Rockwell, Christmas card. And I'm like, I don't even know what that looks like, but I love the idea. Let's do that. And so he just stepped into it and said, it has to be funny. It has to earn the laughs and then it's got to have heart in the humor. And then when it gets to the moment where the message takes center stage, it needs to go for it and swing for the fence. And so it was an ambitious undertaking. But he assembled this incredible cast and he started to direct it. And that guy pulled it off. And I still am scratching my head how he did it, but it has such authentic laughs. And right now, from the early access screenings the crowd has started to rate it. And so right now it's at a hundred percent certified with the audience on Rotten Tomatoes, which is. Rare error. And then the critic, the critics that, always are a hard sell with faith films. Right now it's at 92 percent with the critics, and three or four of those are top critics. For us, we're excited to break new ground, and I think this thing has the DNA of a movie like It's a Wonderful Life, or Elf, or A Christmas Story. It's a classic, it's a perennial, and you have to see it in theaters this weekend, and then you're gonna watch it every year after. Absolutely. Oh my gosh. And it really is going to be a classic. The story itself is just so moving. So talk to us a little bit about, you had a pretty amazing cast in this film. So you had Judy Greer, Peter Holmes, Lauren Graham, like, how did it, how did it feel to work with such great people? And then also the Herdman actors, the little kids that had to play that part, that had to been a hoot. I know it wasn't our play. So talk to me a little bit about that. The Herdmans were the getting the right kids to play the Herdmans and to play this little girl, Beth. That's Grace's daughter. That's the perspective of the whole audience and the adult version of her narrates the film. That was like the critical thing. And I, we went to the, the opening screening last Saturday. And I took my two daughters with my wife. And so my youngest is eight. And so Penny Joy. It got to the end of the movie and she didn't care about any of the movie stars, he cared about the Herdman's and she was like, you have to introduce me to the Herdman's. I need to meet the Herdman's. So she pushes through the crowd and ends up grabbing the Herdman's and organizing a group photo for her to be in the front of, she was like awestruck. Like she was just so connected to them. That she just was obsessed and these little kids just do something special. And then the girl in particular, the little girl that plays Imogene, who's the oldest child in the Herdman's is a little 12 year old girl named Beatrice and Beatrice just. Her scene at the end of the movie, that's the heart of the story. It brought me to tears when I saw the first cut of the film. And so Dallas pulls her aside right before they filmed the big climax of the movie. And he said, for 20 years, I've chased this story and I've imagined this moment over and over again. And when I first started pursuing it, you weren't even born, but he's I'm so privileged that you're the one that gets to tell the story. And she just breaks down crying. And it was a moment and it was so cool. And so these kids are amazing. And then to fill that in with these incredible actors, Judy Greer can have a meltdown on camera with the best of them, like she's just so lovable. And in this story, I think in my opinion, it's. It's vintage Judy Greer. It's my favorite performance that I've seen of hers. It's really another level. And then Pete Holmes as a comedian is one of my favorite guys out there right now doing standup comedy. He is so funny and so much heart in this character. And then Lauren Graham, who a lot of people know from deal more girls. I love her from parenthood. Lauren Graham is the narrator for the whole story and is our adult version of Beth at the very end of the movie. And Lauren is just, her voice is just so soothing and just such a comfort to walk you through the story. So every aspect of it is when I say that Dallas stuck the landing, the most authentic emotion that you can trigger in any other filmmaker is jealousy. And when I watch it, I'm jealous. I'm like, I wish I directed it. I didn't. In fact, my eight year old Penny, she was like, dad, that's the best thing you've ever directed. And I was like, I didn't direct it, sweetheart, but thank you. I'll give the compliment to Dallas Jenkins. Oh, wow. That's wonderful. So for your audience, if you had to sum up and say, I want the audiences to take away one, one thing one hope from this and really in the spirit of christmas, what would that be? I think it's time to celebrate because I think what this movie really is about is the idea of hope and the whole theme of the movie is the heart of Christmas is "Unto you a Child is born, and that's unto the Herdmans that's unto Grace and her family and the church like it's unto all of us. It's available and I think In a world that has so much fear in it and so much fear of people that, are different than us to get back to the idea of offering that grace of Christmas as an invitation. And, having just gotten through an election and all those type things, there's just a heart of let's turn the page. And let's have a story of hope where we can celebrate and look to the true meaning of Christmas, because our hope is really in Jesus. And that's really what this story is about. And so we're really so excited to present something that can bring people together, that can be the whole family can unite around and we can celebrate the hope that we all crave. So good. And we love that. We love sharing this with our audience because our audience is obviously very attuned to good, wholesome content for the family. They want to be careful about where they invest their dollars and their time. So I love this. And I love the fact that you and Dallas are out there making films that families can enjoy and hopefully treasure for generations to come. I love this. So speaking of Christmas, tell me a little bit, what is your favorite Christmas tradition? Do you have one? The thing I love about this film is, Dallas wanted to tap into those kind of nostalgic Christmas memories that we all have. And, those memories and that's the, hence the Norman Rockwell painting. It's those ideas that are idealized versions of, the holidays that we have as kids that don't have a date stamped on it. It's not about a time period. It's about just this, emotional experience we had as children with the wide eyed kind of view of what Christmas was and should be. And for me, it was all about the Christmas tree. And there's a moment in this film where they're going to cut down the Christmas tree and just all the hijinks that happen around that. And for me, that was always the case. My dad was all about the real Christmas tree. It had to be real. He had to cut it down at a certain time. And and so when we were, when I was little, I was six years old, we lived in Ohio and we had this old, house that had really high ceilings. I think 20 foot ceilings. So my dad decided he wanted to fill every inch of that. So he went out. I'm not sure if he actually went to a Christmas tree farm or if he just went out in the woods and cut down a pine tree. But I just remember just the moment when he opened the door and he was, ear to ear smile and all you saw behind him was foliage. Like it was just solid green and he just somehow forced it in the door and, stood it up and I, and there's a picture that my, my parents still have of it. I'm six years old and it was tall enough where I could stand up under the lowest branch. And so for me, that was just always It was almost like Disney world. It was like larger than life. And I would just lay under that tree and look at all the twinkling lights and looking at the train going around the tree. And so for me, the Christmas tree is what gets me in the Christmas spirit. And that moment was captured in this film. That is wonderful. That's bringing back memories for me, Andy, you're doing a great job. So Andy, tell us where can people find out more about this film? It's in theaters this weekend. So Friday it's in theaters everywhere. And so opening weekend is so critical for us. There is a slim chance if this if everything aligns properly and everybody votes with their ticket, the way it seems like it's lining up, there's a slim chance that we could have a number one weekend, which would be massive for this kind of story. And so your ticket, really counts right now. And so excited to see what happens there. You can find out more information about it as. Best Christmas Pageant Ever dot movie. And you can go there and there's information about how to go buy tickets. By group tickets if you want and how to spread the word, tell your friends, tell your families and take groups from church and go celebrate the theaters. It's going to be an amazing experience. Best Christmas Pageant Ever dot movie. It's a mouthful. And for those of us that are a little challenged with spelling, we'll put that in the show links. Yeah. So that way, you don't have to try to figure out how to spell pageant. No worries. No, it's good. We will definitely encourage our listeners. We definitely have a voice with our dollars when we buy these tickets and support amazing films like this. You will not be disappointed. This is an amazing story. You are going to love this. Andy, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing the message of hope and this movie. I am just pumped about this. So thank you so much for coming. Thanks Karen, Rob, when we go to do the sequel. We'll call your agent. All Thanks Andy. And thank you listeners for joining The Covenant Eyes Podcast today. Take care. God bless.