The Oklahoman has the story, which is interesting for mentioning Graham’s “failing health.” Here’s the story:
Producers recently wrapped filming on “Billy: The Early Years,” a movie on the life of evangelist Billy Graham scheduled for theatrical release this fall.
The full-length biopic focuses on the famed evangelist as a young man. Starting with Graham as a North Carolina farm boy, the movie follows his life as he studies at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he meets his wife Ruth, then continues on to his 1949 Los Angeles crusade.
“It’s kind of a Norman Rockwell view of America in the ’30s and ’40s … told through the prism of Billy Graham and his family,” said Larry Mortoff, one of the movie’s producers.
The film is being made independent of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, although Mortoff said the association is aware of it. Graham, 89, is in failing health at his home in western North Carolina.
Filmmakers combed through archives to reconstruct the evangelist’s life from 1934 to 1949, Mortoff said. “We wanted to tell a true story, a compelling story,” Mortoff said, one that would “walk the line of … complete respect for the life and life work of Billy and Ruth Graham.”
Filmmakers plan to release the movie nationwide this fall on 500 screens after premieres in Nashville and possibly Orlando, Fla. Mortoff said plans call for showing the film to pastors and asking churches to support the movie. InService America, the Virginia-based agency that helped promote Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” to evangelical Christian audiences, will also market the Graham film, Mortoff said.