What Is the Budget of I Still Believe?

I Still Believe (2020), directed by Jon and Andrew Erwin and distributed by Lionsgate through Kingdom Story Company, had a reported production budget of approximately $12,000,000. The film was produced as the follow-up to I Can Only Imagine, the Erwin Brothers' landmark 2018 faith biographical drama that had earned $86 million worldwide on a $7 million budget. The higher budget reflects both the increased production ambitions of the follow-up and the investment justified by that earlier success.

The film's release in March 2020 was directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused widespread theater closures within days of its opening weekend. I Still Believe's theatrical run was cut dramatically short by the pandemic, making its final box office figure an incomplete measure of the audience the film would have reached under normal theatrical conditions.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

I Still Believe's $12 million budget was concentrated in the areas that define a biographical romantic drama about music, illness, and faith:

Above-the-Line Cast — KJ Apa, known primarily for Riverdale at the time of production, and Britt Robertson anchor the central relationship. The supporting cast includes Gary Sinise and Shania Twain in key roles. Sinise's presence as Jeremy's father adds both dramatic weight and above-the-line cost. The ensemble reflects a meaningful investment in performances, which is appropriate for a story whose emotional power depends entirely on the audience believing in the relationship at its center.
Music Production and Rights — Jeremy Camp is a working Christian artist whose songs are a central element of the story. Incorporating his music into the film requires rights arrangements for existing recordings and the production of new musical performances for the biographical context. Music rights and performance production are significant cost items for any biographical film centered on a recording artist.
Period Production Design — The story is set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, requiring period-accurate production design including college environments, hospital settings, and the visual language of early-2000s Christian music culture. The era's specific wardrobe, set dressing, and technology details matter to an audience old enough to remember this period.
Lionsgate Wide Release Infrastructure — The Lionsgate distribution partnership, established through I Can Only Imagine, brought mainstream theatrical release infrastructure including national marketing, premium screen access, and the operational support of a major distributor. This infrastructure is a meaningful cost component that also substantially raises the film's commercial ceiling relative to faith-only distribution.

How Does I Still Believe's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

At $12,000,000, I Still Believe sits at the upper end of the Kingdom Story Company production range. The relevant comparisons must account for the pandemic context that distorted its theatrical result:

I Can Only Imagine (2018) — Budget $7,000,000 | Worldwide $86,100,000. The Erwin Brothers' own prior production is the unavoidable comparison: the same filmmakers, distribution platform, and faith biographical formula, executed at a lower budget with a more commercially accessible hook. I Still Believe had neither the cultural trigger of a beloved song nor a normal theatrical window to demonstrate what it might have earned.
A Walk to Remember (2002) — Budget $11,800,000 | Worldwide $41,200,000. The Nicholas Sparks adaptation about a young man falling in love with a terminally ill girl is the most structurally similar film in the non-faith canon: a young love story destroyed by illness, set within a Christian family context. A Walk to Remember's $41 million result at a nearly identical budget suggests I Still Believe had a comparable commercial profile before the pandemic intervention.
The Fault in Our Stars (2014) — Budget $12,000,000 | Worldwide $307,200,000. The extraordinary outlier comparison for a terminal illness love story at an identical production budget. The Fault in Our Stars crossed over into mainstream youth culture in a way that I Still Believe's explicitly Christian framing could not replicate, but the budget comparison illustrates how commercially efficient the premise can be when it achieves crossover appeal.
Miracles from Heaven (2016) — Budget $13,000,000 | Worldwide $73,800,000. Sony's faith drama about a child's miraculous healing is the closest comparable in budget, faith framing, and mainstream studio distribution. Miracles from Heaven's strong result at a nearly identical budget demonstrates what I Still Believe might have achieved under normal theatrical conditions.
Unsung Hero (2024) — Budget $6,000,000 | Worldwide $21,200,000. A later Kingdom Story Company production at half the budget that outperformed I Still Believe's pandemic-affected total. The comparison illustrates the advantage of lower production costs in a distribution model where faith community engagement, rather than production scale, drives commercial returns.

I Still Believe Box Office Performance

I Still Believe earned $15,600,000 domestically and $16,100,000 worldwide at the box office. The film opened on March 13, 2020, the same weekend that widespread pandemic-related theater closures began across the United States. After a strong opening weekend of approximately $9,200,000, the theatrical run was effectively shut down within days. The worldwide total represents a dramatically truncated version of what the film would have earned under normal theatrical conditions.

A film typically needs to earn approximately twice its production budget to cover marketing and distribution costs. For I Still Believe, that break-even threshold was roughly $24,000,000. Based on its Lionsgate wide release, Prints and Advertising costs are estimated at approximately $10,000,000, bringing the total estimated investment to around $22,000,000. With worldwide earnings of $16,100,000, the film fell short of its theatrical investment, though the pandemic context makes this result a poor representation of the film's actual commercial potential.

Production Budget: approximately $12,000,000
Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): approximately $10,000,000
Total Estimated Investment: approximately $22,000,000
Worldwide Gross: $16,100,000
Net Return: approximately -$5,900,000
ROI: approximately -27%

At approximately -27%, I Still Believe returned roughly $0.73 for every $1 invested during its abbreviated theatrical run. This figure substantially understates the film's actual financial performance across all revenue windows: I Still Believe was released to streaming and home video rapidly due to the pandemic and performed strongly in those channels, where faith community audiences who missed the theatrical window engaged with it extensively.

I Still Believe Production History

I Still Believe was developed by Kingdom Story Company as the follow-up to I Can Only Imagine, continuing the Erwin Brothers' commitment to biographical faith dramas about Christian music figures. Jeremy Camp's story had been known within the Christian music community for years: his marriage to Melissa Henning, her death from cancer months after their wedding, and the song he wrote in her memory that became one of the most performed worship songs of its era. The film's development involved Camp's participation and drew on both his personal accounts and the public knowledge of Melissa's story within the Christian community.

The film's March 2020 release was planned as a premium theatrical event for the faith community, timed to the pre-Easter season when faith-adjacent films traditionally perform strongly. The COVID-19 pandemic's arrival in the same week as the film's opening fundamentally altered its theatrical trajectory. The production's rapid transition to digital platforms, necessary given the theater closures, demonstrated the resilience of the faith community audience across distribution channels: I Still Believe performed well in its streaming lifecycle in ways that its truncated box office figures do not reflect.

Awards and Recognition

I Still Believe received strong audience engagement within the Christian music community, where Jeremy Camp's story and the memory of Melissa Henning are deeply known and meaningful. The film's CinemaScore reflected high satisfaction among viewers who made it to theaters during the brief opening window. Jeremy Camp's ongoing presence as a working Christian artist, and the enduring place of his songs in contemporary worship music, have kept the film relevant beyond its theatrical lifecycle.

Critical Reception

Critical reception for I Still Believe was mixed to positive. Reviewers acknowledged the film's genuine emotional power, noting that KJ Apa and Britt Robertson's performances carry the central relationship credibly and that the story's real grief is handled with appropriate weight. Critics outside the faith community noted the film's genre conventions while recognizing that the authentic biographical foundation distinguishes it from fictional terminal illness romances.

The pandemic context means that I Still Believe's critical reception and box office analysis must both be held loosely: neither the reviews nor the gross tell the full story of a film that reached its largest audience after its theatrical run was cut short. For the Christian community that knows Jeremy Camp's music and Melissa's story, the film's emotional honesty and the faithfulness of its biographical portrayal matter more than any external measure of commercial or critical performance.