Faith-based drama adds Queen Latifah in attempt to escape fate of most faith-based dramas

By Sam Barsanti | June 23, 2015 | 1:58am

Aux Features Film

So-called “faith-based” movies are always in a tough spot. Professional critics generally think they’re lousy, which means that people who are on the fence about believing in God will probably save their ticket money and see some secular dinosaur movie or whatever instead. Then, the only ones paying to see Kirk Cameron’s latest opus will be the people who already believe and just want to see a wholesome film about people who love Jesus, which isn’t going to break any box office records. One way to solve this would be to simply make better faith-based movies, but most of the people who work in Hollywood are godless heathens, so they won’t go for that.

Luckily, making a movie good isn’t the only way to make it successful. You can also stack the cast with famous people, and that’s what the filmmakers behind the upcoming Miracles From Heaven are doing. We’ve already reported that Jennifer Garner will be starring in the movie—which is an adaptation of Christy Beam’s book of the same name—and now The Hollywood Reporter says that she’ll be joined by Queen Latifah. Miracles From Heaven is about a woman (Garner) whose young daughter overcomes an “incurable” disease through what can only be described as a miracle from heaven (get it?). Latifah will play a waitress who befriends the girl while she’s in the hospital, and THR describes her character as “something of an earthly angel.”