By Michaela Gordoni
DANIEL movie creators, brothers Matthew and Daniel Kooman, say they believe God moved on set.
“When you were actually filming these scenes, incredible things were happening,” Daniel said. “Wind blew like actual winds blew in. Trees were blowing. Tents were literally flying off the set.”
“We literally prayed before we made this movie: ‘God, if you’re not supposed to make this movie, don’t let us make this movie,’” Daniel said.
They wanted it to be as truthful to the scripture and Daniel’s story as possible.
Related: Why This Filmmaker Leaned on the Holy Spirit to Create a Bible Movie
“There are quite a few scenes where they’re just literally verbatim, just quoting Scripture,” Daniel said.
“We grew up in a home that loved the Bible, like the Bible was open at the dinner table, and we read it. My dad read the Bible stories. We went to Sunday school, did all the things,” Matthew said, explaining that Daniel was even named after the Daniel in the Bible.
As they grew older, they knew they wanted to bring the true stories from the Bible to screens.
“As we grew into filmmaking, it was like, eventually we’ll make Bible movies. That was always on our hearts,” Matthew said.
“The Daniel story, after the shutdown in 2020, we kind of had a way into the story that felt really fresh and really applicable to basically Western culture today,” Matthew explained. “There’s a different kind of energy and maybe even suffering that some people experience that was sort of new to Western.”
The brothers raised $1.5 million from supporters to create DANIEl.
Daniel told The Christian Post in another interview, “We’ve been developing the DANIEL movie for a couple of years because we’ve known for many years that biblical films are really what the faith audience is looking for. Now that it’s actually becoming available, and people can be a part of it, that just really drove the crowdfund to amazing heights. People are like, ‘Yeah, this is exactly what we want.’”
“The market really has opened up to stories like this to be told and to be received in a broader way that has never really been there for us,” Matthew said. “Being able to tell Christian stories like is such a blessing.”
The movie stars Mena Massoud, Vishaal Singh Rathore and Elijah Alexander, with a soundtrack by Michael W. Smith.
After DANIEL debuts sometime this year, the brothers hope to make its sequel, THE LION’S DEN.
Read Next: Sight & Sound to Launch Story of Daniel, Largest Production Yet
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