"Most films have a sneak preview a couple weeks before a film opens to generate a buzz around the water cooler," producer Peter LaLonde said. "All we did in reality was have a larger sneak preview by releasing the film on video. Now, instead of twenty people talking about us around the water cooler, we have hundreds of people across the nation talking."
LaLonde's strategy of marketing the film may have been something unheard of in Hollywood, but now 'Left Behind' has all of Hollywood's attention. The film, which focuses on a reporter ('Growing Pains' alumnus Kirk Cameron) investigating millions of innocent people disappearing into thin air, has already been generating a word of mouth buzz comparable to 1999's marketing-blessed independent film 'The Blair Witch Project.' And while the cast and crew of 'Left Behind' knew they did the marketing for the film backwards, they didn't let that stop them from making 'Left Behind' one of the best films they have all been a part of. Some of the cast was even devoted to the film before signing on.
"Chelsea (Noble) woke me up one night after finishing the book telling me I just had to read it," Cameron said. "A week later my agent called me with the script and offered both of us parts in the movie."
"It was weird," Noble said, "because just a week beforehand I was telling Kirk that they just had to make 'Left Behind' into a film and how I had to play Hattie and he had to play Buck. Then a week later Kirk told me that his agent called and offered us those roles."
While Cameron admits he didn't listen to his wife and read the novel at first, after reading the script and accepting the lead role he decided to go back and read the novel to learn more about where his character was coming from.
"I didn't want too much of the novel in my head while working on the film because I wanted to honor the screen-adaptation of the book," Cameron said. "So what I did was I read the novel at the pace we were shooting the film so I could feel what Buck was feeling in that situation."
