Exclusive Interview: Christian Filmmaker Jon Erwin Aims to Change Hollywood with 'The Wonder Project'

Director Jon Erwin last week announced he had co-founded a groundbreaking new independent studio, The Wonder Project, that already has more than $75 million in seed and Series A funding and that will create movies and television shows for the faith- and values-oriented audience. Erwin will serve as the chief content officer, while co-founder Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten, a  former Netflix and YouTube executive, will serve as CEO.

The idea is to create a studio that is as successful as Disney and Universal are but that only produces faith-based, values-focused content. Dallas Jenkins, the creator and director of The Chosen, will serve as an advisor and will be an executive director on some projects.  

“I just think the time is now,” Erwin told Christian Headlines. “I think that there's an opportunity for a leap forward and for an almost ‘Declaration of Independence’ -- where we can build our own studio that hopefully, God-willing, can really endure the test of time. It would just be amazing if the stories that we're making now could create a place that could allow stories to be told decades from now. … I'm working on projects that I've been dreaming of my entire career.”

Erwin is the only director in movie history to earn four A+ CinemaScore ratings (Jesus Revolution, Woodlawn, I Can Only Imagine, and American Underdog.) 

The faith-based, values-driven audience has a hunger for more content than is currently available, he said. 

“They want a values-based ecosystem. They want a single brand and destination that is completely unashamed and unafraid of faith-based stories like Jesus Revolution, the American dream, and the American experience. … They just want their values infused into content that will pull their family back together.”

The Wonder Project will give filmmakers the creative control that could be lacking while working with mainstream studios, he said. Erwin and Jenkins had a common vision, he added.

Erwin compared the power of a studio to the power of a group of horses. 

“I like the story that one draft horse can pull about 8,000 pounds. If you put two together, they can pull 24,000 -- 32,000 if they train,” he said. “We just had a common vision to create a destination where we could be free to create and allow that same freedom to be given to other people in the space.”

Directors in the faith-based realm, he said, often understand their audiences better than mainstream executives do. 

“You know what works, you know what you need to do, and then you're trying to convince studios to sort of let you reach an audience that you know better than they do. And so you just wonder: Why can't we create an entity like that that can endure?”

Erwin added, “If you give the leading creatives the freedom and resources to reach an audience that we know far better than a lot of the studios, then that's typically where the success happens.”

The Wonder Project will then partner with streamers and other partners to distribute the final project, he said. The studio’s titles will celebrate faith, values, families, and America, he said.

“We want to make stories that flood the world with hope. And we want to make stories that restore faith in things worth believing in,” he said.

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Photo Courtesy: CanvaPro/©Kingdom Story Company, used with permission.

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.