Revelation Road 3, another series for the end of days

Pure Flix Entertainment ended 2013 with announcing that Kevin Sorbo, famous for playing Hercules in the TV-series with the same name, will be a lead actor in the third part of their apocalyptic film series Revelation Road. Sorbo, no stranger to Christian movies or to Pure Flix Entertainment, is also the star of God is not Dead (2013) where he plays an atheist professor who, to nobody’s surprise, gets defeated by a young evangelical student in a debate about the existence of God. Sorry for the spoiler.

Kevin Sorbo as an atheist professor in God is Not Dead (2013)

Revelation Road then is one of several movies produced by Pure Flix about the world after the Rapture and all of these have been produced in the form of serials with the exception of In the Blink of an Eye from 2009, which is more of a stand alone movie. But apart form this exception, when dealing with the Rapture and the Great Tribulation the method of choice is serials. This means that all these movies will end with a cliffhanger and the audience expects that there will be a follow up. For Pure Flix this is something of a problem, right now there is at least three different film series that concerns the Rapture from Pure Flix, Jerusalem Countdown (2011), The Mark I and II (2012 and 2013) and Revelation Road I and II (both 2013). To this we can add several more film series from other similar companies like The Moment After (1999 and 2006), and of course the Left Behind-movies, that will be rebooted this year starring Nicolas Cage.

Considering this, one has to wonder if the market for Rapture-movies is starting to become overcrowded and also, why continually start new series? Why not for once finish one storyline to the end? Just as Rapture-movies mainly have been made as series they also have never reached their conclusion. The first of these, A Thief in the Night from 1972 spawned three sequels but even here we find that the last one The Prodigal Planet (1983) still ended with a cliffhanger. Maybe Revelation Road or the rebooted Left Behind-series will be so successful that they will continue to the end but I remain skeptical. Also regarding Left Behind I question if they will manage to make movies out of all 13 books, not counting the three prequels, even if it's a big success. However one can hope that one of these will at least see the return of Christ and finally we can get to enjoy the battle of Armageddon on the big screen. If that is the case I hope they will make it in 3D.