"October Baby" was released in just 390 theaters last weekend, but that didn't stop the film from making a sizable impact on the box office. Only "The Hunger Games" and "21 Jump Street" had better per-screen averages among films in the top-ten, and "October Baby" earned an impressive $1.6 million over the three-day frame, topping Hollywood blockbusters like "Safe House," "Journey 2: Mysterious Island" and "This Means War" in the process. (Those films were in their seventh, seventh and sixth weekends of release, respectively.)
Why did "October Baby" perform so well? Perhaps because of its subject matter: the indie feature is about a college freshman who finds out she was adopted after surviving a failed late-term abortion. That lightning-rod premise gave "Baby" a good amount of press over the last week, , mobilizing church groups to local theaters. According to the Los Angeles Times, "October Baby" was released in Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi by the American Family Association in an effort to "drum up support for a state anti-abortion ballot initiative."
Yet with all that political red tape, star John Schneider isn't convinced "October Baby" is an issues-oriented film, let alone pro-life.
"The people behind them are pro life, but I don't know if the movies are," Schneider told THR in a new interview. In addition to "Baby," the devout Christian and former "Dukes of Hazzard" star has the pro-life film "Doonby" coming soon as well. "Neither movie is coming out and pointing a finger and saying, 'You terrible pro-choice people are going to Hell!'" he said.
Schneider said that his religious views have often been a source of discontent among his Hollywood brethren, even costing him a job.
"I was in a makeup trailer talking to the executive producer -- the boss of the show -- and I said that one of the reasons I moved to the Agoura area was to find a Christian school, because I didn't want my kids to be taught that evolution is the only possible answer to how we got here," he recalled to THR. "And I lost my directing job because of that statement. That person said, 'that's terrible, we can't have your perspective... All's I said was I wanted both perspectives. It's all I said."
Still, Schneider says he understands that all forms of bigotry exist.
"There's Christian bigotry. There's also Democrat bigotry, Republican bigotry, straight bigotry and homosexual bigotry," he said. "There's a lot of people here."
For more on Schneider and his part in "October Baby," head over to THR. For more on the film itself, check out the "October Baby" website.
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