DeVon Franklin to oversee Randall Wallace film Heaven Is for Real Posted by Wilson Morales
August 24, 2012
Source: Variety
Sony Picture’s Devon Franklin, who was just named Senior Vice President of Production for Columbia Pictures, will be overseeing the faith-based family drama Heaven Is for Real that Randall Wallace has been hired to direct. Joe Roth is producing through his Roth Films along with T.D. Jakes, who just produced Sparkle for the studio.
Christopher Parker is writing the script, which is an adaptation of Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent‘s best-selling non-fiction book Heaven is For Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip To Heaven And Back. Parker just wrote the screenplay for Battle of the Year, which stars Laz Alonzo and Chris Brown.
According the amazon, the story of Heaven Is for Real is of a young boy who emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven.
Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn’t know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.
Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how “reaaally big” God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit “shoots down power” from heaven to help us.
Told by the father, but often in Colton’s own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.
Wallace last directed the horse film Secretariat and wrote the screenplays for Braveheart and Pearl Harbor. His work on Braveheart earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and a Writers Guild of America award for Best Screenplay Adapted Directly for the Screen.
He recently signed on to direct WWII pic “The Conscientious Objector” for Walden Media, and also agreed to write the action-adventure pic “Gunslingers” for New Regency and star Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show Prods. banner.
