George Escobar is not a household name in Hollywood, to be sure.
But, in the world of Christian movie-making, he is increasingly being recognized as a star – a combination director, producer, screenwriter talent who makes great films on time and under budget.
As the new hit “I Can Only Imagine” is shocking Hollywood with its overtly Christian story and major box office success, Escobar, WND’s vice president of film, TV and video, has released another in a long line of visually compelling, story-telling documentaries – “70 YEARS: Israel’s Prophetic Past, Present and Future” in partnership with me and Jewish Voice TV host Jonathan Bernis.
Escobar’s prolific work includes a directorial debut for the Oscar nominated “Alone Yet Not Alone,” which made national headlines in 2014 when the little-known Christian movie garnered the Academy Award nomination for its title song, only to see it yanked away through an unprecedented act of political correctness by Hollywood.
The double controversy of the nomination first, then its removal, raised hackles in both Christianity and Hollywood. An Oscar-winning Hollywood producer even blasted the Academy for exhibiting what “many will see … as faith-based bigotry, pure and simple.”
As frequently is the case with Escobar, he served as producer, co-director and co-writer on the surprise hit.
“The attack on the Best Song Oscar nomination for ‘Alone Yet Not Alone’ began seconds after the nomination was announced,” Escobar explained. “You could hear the audible gasp in the room when the Academy president said the name of the movie.”
“Two weeks later, despite the song fulfilling every eligibility criteria for the Oscar nomination; despite the credentials of the songwriters, Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel; and despite the growing popularity of the song with audiences who were hearing it for the first time, the Academy president rescinded the nomination because the composer lobbied for the song via email,” he continued. “Yet every nominee across all categories lobbied for votes – clearly a double-standard was imposed on this song.”
Besides “Alone,” Escobar’s 2012 film “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” was the best-selling faith movie of that year and the following year on Amazon.
Since “Passion of the Christ” in 2004 (earning over $600 million in worldwide theatrical box office) blew open the doors for faith films in Hollywood, a steady stream, then a gusher of low-budget and micro-budget Christian films began to flood the market.
Escobar has never been busier in this new environment – and “70 YEARS: Israel’s Prophetic Past, Present and Future” is his latest triumph – among the top-selling documentaries at Amazon weeks ahead of its official release.
He’s been raising money for a theatrical production of “Trapped in Hitler’s Hell,” a movie adaptation of the WND Book of the same name. He has already directed a documentary version of the uplifting and redemptive true story of Holocaust survivor Anita Dittman. WND is currently sponsoring a GoFundMe crowd-gathering fundraiser for “Trapped.”
He has also been meeting with top producers in Hollywood and Nashville on an adaptation of another WND Book, “Missileman,” another remarkable true story, this one about Wallace Clauson, America’s top-secret weapon during the Cold War. Working undercover as an IBM salesman, Clauson was actually Einstein’s human calculator and a devout Christian, charged with designing and protecting America’s nuclear-missile arsenal, making Clauson a prime target for elimination by Soviet agents. In Hollywood parlance: It’s “Hidden Figures” meets “The Bridge of Spies.”
See the “70 YEARS” trailer:
[jwplayer 98d94xiY]
For the past 10 years, Escobar has also been training young people and adults to become filmmakers for Christ under his production company, Advent Film Group, by allowing them to make commercially driven, feature-length films instead of short student films.
Escobar joined WND Films as its vice president in 2013, having come from Discovery Networks as a vice president of product development and from AOL/Time Warner as an executive director of broadband.
After completing a producing fellowship at American Film Institute, Escobar worked in Hollywood for several years before founding Advent Film Group and joining WND. In his four years at WND, Escobar has produced and/or directed nearly a dozen award-winning feature length documentaries under the WND Films banner.
