By Dianne E. Butts:
Fans of the Guidepost novels can look forward to the coming Love Finds You movies for TV.
The Love Finds You movie series will be produced by Mission Pictures International.
What do Humble, Texas; Miracle, Kentucky; and Sisters, Oregon have in common? Besides being the settings of novels in the popular “Love Finds You” book series (Guideposts’ Summerside imprint) they are also settings for the soon to be made-for-TV Love Finds You movies, based on those novels. While characters from the pages come to life on screen to find romantic love, hopefully viewers will also find God in these films.
In a recent interview, I visited with Chevonne O’Shaughnessy, founder of Mission Pictures International (MPI) and one of the Executive Producers of the Love Finds You movies, and asked her how she got connected to this project.
“Bill Schultz, who sells for Mission Pictures to Christian bookstores, came to me and showed me the books. He said his daughter was a big fan of them, so I took them home and started reading. I loved the concept from the beginning. The stories were fun and uplifting. We could make them on a budget. And there was a market for them both domestically and internationally.”
An article by John W. Kennedy on Beliefnet.com says:
“…that while the books do involve romantic girl-meets-boy they are not just about that. The heroine of a Love Finds You story…will first learn to love herself for who she is.”
“Each one of the books has a positive message of morals,” Chevonne said. And the love is “not just romance between a man and a woman, but the woman finds herself back with her family and her community that she had lost.”
Chevonne got into the film industry more than twenty years ago with PM Entertainment, which produced and distributed over 175 titles plus two TV series. She co-owns Mission Pictures with Cindy Bond, and they serve as the films’ executive producers. MPI is now the leading distributor for faith and uplifting stories in the international market, she said. So producing a TV series is a natural fit. Chevonne hopes consumers “can sit down together as a family and enjoy a movie,” she told me.
Chevonne said they are still developing the script, so no casting or locations have been set yet. The Beliefnet.com article says, the films “will feature very recognizable TV stars.”
“At this moment we have seven books that we are doing with Guideposts with an option on the remaining forty-five books,” Chevonne said. In addition to a story set in each of the fifty United States, the series includes a Christmas movie. And besides the three books mentioned at the opening of this article and the Christmas movie, the other four books that have been optioned are set in Charm, Ohio; Sun Valley, Idaho; and Carmel, California.
MPI plans to post the progress of the films on the Guidepost website for fans to follow.
It sounds to me as though we have a lot to look forward to with Mission Pictures and its efforts to help viewers find God in the coming Love Finds You TV movies.
Video: No videos for the Love Finds You movie series are available yet, but here’s one from another movie from MPI: Seven Days in Utopia.
© Dianne E. Butts. Diane’s latest book is Grandparenting through Obstacles: Overcoming Family Challenges to Reach Your Grandchildren for Christ, with Renee Gray-Wilburn. Also an aspiring screenwriter, Dianne produced the short film The Choice, based on a story in her book Deliver Me, about unplanned pregnancy. Learn more HERE or at www.DianneEButts.com.
