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Brett Ballard-Beach: I concur with Edwin's analysis,particularly the fortuitous (or well-scheduled) timing of this coming on the heels of Son of God and just before Noah (even though I understand there are some who may think it heretical of me to lump the latter in with the two former). And yes perhaps the Hercules vs. Duck Dynasty showdown looked like a promising grudge match. There is also the title, which is like the most concise studio pitch ever, and sounds like a promise of salvation, a threat of decimation, the sequel to Paul Is Dead and/or a lost blaxploitation flick from the '70s. Taken all together, that helped this open to a better figure than either Courageous or Fireproof - the two highest grossers of this subset outside of The Passion of the Christ and Son of God - and should get to a final at least as high.

Max Braden: I wonder if there was just a small catalyst in Neil DeGrasse Tyson's "Cosmos" series currently showing on Fox on Sunday nights. It's displayed an anti-church slant that has made me wonder if the devout were looking for a way to counter balance it.

Kim Hollis: I've seen some of my more devout friends talking up the film via social channels, so I had a feeling this was a film that would find some significant success. This type of film reaches out to a very specific audience and not much marketing is required to get positive results. With Facebook at play, it is easier than ever for the distributors of these types of projects to find not just prospective movie goers, but advocates.

David Mumpower: During the years I have spent running this site, one of the most surprising revelations, especially in the early days, was the obsession some faith-based organizations had with the infiltration of Hollywood. That was their word, not mine. There is a belief that cinema is one of the strongest methods for indoctrinating people into a religious philosophy, and I include atheism in that.

For years now, we have received media requests from places who want to pick our staff's collective brain. What they have to know are the best ways to spread the message of faith via major motion pictures. The uphill battle they have faced is that the feature film distribution system is rigged toward major corporate conglomerates.

Exhibitors have been reluctant to alter their model enough to provide opportunities to films they expect to be preachy. That philosophy has changed over the past couple of years as the cable-ization of cinema that we have been tracking has led to more of these small scale triumphs. It is better for an exhibitor to direct a small percentage of their theaters to niche films than to cede 500 more venues to a title that is not going to have sellouts with the play dates it already has. Simply stated, the performance of God's Not Dead is the latest example of effective direct targeting of a product with otherwise neglected consumers who covet the product. The best part from the distributor perspective is that a lot of customers are the ones who showed up en masse for The Passion of the Christ but nothing else in the interim. Their irregular presence in a movie theater is the equivalent of found money because they are effectively new clients.

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