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Mart Green (left) and Steve Saint in Ecuador

And so I flew down with Steve to Ecuador in October of '99 and spent seven days in the jungle. We asked the Waodani for the rights to do the story—and they said no. Then Steve told them about Columbine, which had happened just months before. And then they said, "Oh, that's just like we used to act, killing for no reason." They said, "If our story can help North America, then you tell our story."

Who do you want to hear this story? Just Christian audiences?

Green: We want a broad audience. I absolutely want Christians to come, and we will market to Christians because it's a story that they love. But it's also a story of an indigenous tribe that was going to be extinct, but they were saved. There's a broad audience appeal to that.

Our target audience is probably an older audience, probably 25 and up. We don't have a star in our story, and we don't blow up buildings and stuff. But there's going to be young people who want to see an extreme story and all that stuff that will impact their lives. They just need a role model, and I think there's some incredible role models in this story.

You're a retail guy who's never been in a movie theater. So it seems weird that you're now Mr. Movie Mogul. I assume you've hired experienced filmmakers?

Green: My job was to pray for God to send me the right people. And he prepared a guy in Hollywood for the last 40 years to do this—Bill Ewing, who was a senior vice-president of production at Sony. He's done 125 films, and the last three films he oversaw were Men in Black II, Stewart Little 2, and Spider-Man. He left Sony to join our team as producer, and obviously he had credible experience.

And your director on both films is Jim Hanon. Who is he, and where did you find him?

Green: Jim Hanon had sent some 30-second commercials to our marketing director [at Hobby Lobby], and I watched them and said, "Whoever did this commercial has a heart like mine." I called him and was going to have him do the commercials for the Bible media campaign. Then I found out his passion was to do films. Everybody told me not to use a first-time director, that it's not smart. But I didn't go by that. I went by faith.

Why is he qualified to do both a documentary and a feature film?

Green: By fact he's not; by faith he is. For the documentary, he went to Ecuador and interviewed everybody. He's been down there three times. So nobody knows the story better than Jim Hanon. I just felt that Jim was the guy.

I hear that more than $20 million has been spent for these movies. Right?

Mart Green and wife Diana with Mincaye

Green: Yes, for both projects and setting this company up, with all the start-up costs. But the movies alone would be in the $10-15 million range.

Is that coming out of your pocket? Or Mardel? Or Hobby Lobby? Or where?

Green: All of them. Hobby Lobby is group of companies, and Mardel is one of them. And we have other donors. It's a nonprofit model, because it started that way—as just a way to get the message out. But instead of doing a 30-second commercial, we ended up doing a two-hour movie about the power of God's Word.

By spending $20 million, those are numbers rarely heard in the context of "Christian films." That's not far behind what Mel Gibson spent to make The Passion of The Christ, which played in thousands of theaters and made a ton of money. Do you see that happening for End of the Spear?

Jim Elliot, one of the missionary martyrs

Green: To be a top ten film would be a very high and lofty goal. If we could do ten percent of what The Passion did, that would be great—something in the $30 million range. We've got to be in that range to make this model work. I believe Chariots of Fire (1981) is a great model. We believe that a Chariots of Fire could come out every single month and it would shape our culture. We have to compete with other films by making films of quality, but we're also looking for great stories. That doesn't mean we wouldn't mind having a Tom Hanks in our films, but he'd still have to serve the story. The story will be the star. Our calling is to tell stories to a broad audience, like Chariots of Fire did. Our stories will be about real people living their faith out and making choices.

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