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But which comes first, a successful low-budget film, or a $20 million budget? Or does the studio say, "Look at the numbers on Sin Eater; you're nuts if you think we're going to give you $20 million"? Do they need a monster breakthrough, like Facing the Giants earning 10,000 percent of its cost? Which has to come first?

Landon: There's opportunity to look at it from both sides. I wouldn't necessarily say The Last Sin Eater is the right movie to spend $20 million on. I was given what I was given, and I did the best I could with those dollars.

Theatrical releases are so driven by the teen marketplace. That's who you have to appeal to in order to be highly successful. My brother [screenwriter Christopher B. Landon] has a movie out [Disturbia] that was Number one for three weeks in a row. That movie targets the teen audience. For studios to spend those dollars now, you have to have a story that'll bring the teens into the theater.

Landon, partner Brian Bird, and Liana Liberato of 'Sin Eater'

Your business partner, Brian Bird, has said filmmakers of faith need to be careful not to form a "Christian ghetto"—don't just preach to the choir, but make movies with as much universal appeal as possible. But when you make a film based on a book by Janette Oke or Francine Rivers, that's primarily for a Christian audience.

Landon: Absolutely.

So, you're not necessarily thinking in terms of "universal appeal"?

Landon: Well, it's universal in that you're dealing with universal themes—redemption, forgiveness, unconditional love—and then the question is, what is the worldview? Every movie has a worldview. And for me, as a Christian, Jesus didn't give us any fudge room on that particular aspect of life.

I get what Brian means by "the ghetto," but at the same time, because a story is "exclusive" in its truth, I don't think that ghetto-izes it. When you start to water things down, it has no value anyway. Anything that has a powerful message is coming from some place, and so you put it out there and hopefully in telling that story, it resonates with someone—whether they are a believer or not.

I hear a lot of this dialogue with Christians being concerned about the ghetto of telling stories. I get their concerns about bad storytelling. But I don't think you're heading into the ghetto just because you're sharing a worldview with a specific truth factor to it.

When you make a movie for FoxFaith, I would think you'd have to have the Christian audience primarily in mind—especially when you're adapting a book that's already been embraced by Christians.

Landon: Yes and no. First, because it's an adaptation, the material is driving you in a specific direction. And second, it's a story that's already resonating with me. So it's not like I say, "Okay, I've really got to nail the Christian audience with this next line." That never comes into play. It's still the story that drives the film. In The Last Sin Eater, it's the story of this little girl's need to be forgiven. I'm never "pandering" to a Christian audience. My goodness, no.

Christians can be a tough audience. They want "truth," but not necessarily the depiction of hard reality.

Landon: Yes. And I'll say this about the Christian audience: Sometimes there is something like hypocrisy that is taking place. The same people who will patronize a secular PG-13 or R-rated movie will have a different standard if there is violence or sexuality or language content in a Christian film. I don't get that.

There's a huge audience that claims to be Christian, and a certain amount of hypocrisy that germinates our culture. They go and see some R-rated film that has much more explicit stuff than a Christian-based film where you can't. How in the world is anybody going to tell a really good urban story if these kids from the streets are saying, "Oh, gosh darn!"? You're definitely not going to speak to the ones you're hoping to speak to—kids living in the urban city. They're going to turn it off in a nanosecond.

Now you have to draw lines, because you never want to use the Devil's tools to tell your story. For example, if you use something sexual in nature, you never want it to be used for the wrong reasons. So there are boundaries that a Christian filmmaker has to be very careful of. But sometimes I think, man, how cool it would be not to be a Christian and have no boundaries to telling a story. You could just put anything out there and not worry about the consequences. But no, that will never work with me. Never.

For more on Michael Landon Jr., read our 2005 interview here.

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