MAURA DUNBAR: First of all, Beverly Lewis is such a beloved Christian author and I think she has that unique perspective into the Amish community with her own background…We got so engaged in the story of Katie Lapp. When we last saw her, she was venturing off to try to find the mother who had come looking for her and really unlocked the secrets of her past. It was just such an engaging story. We had to come back for the second (book). I’m happy to say that there’s an amazing third book that sort of completes the trilogy called The Reckoning. So, in The Confession we get a chance to be reunited with Katie. She gets there and there’s this mystery that she’s got to solve.  She thought she was coming to what would be a homecoming only to find out that there’s an imposter standing in her own shoes pretending to be her all the while her mother is dying and ill. It’s a wonderful story about faith and love and a family connection that binds us. We knew going in with the first book (that) we wanted to tell the whole trilogy.

JWK: Speaking of the first book, The Shunning had some very good ratings.

MD: Yeah, the ratings were very good.

JWK: Do you think the strong ratings for films like The Shunning, your own GSN game show The American Bible Challenge and, of course, The Bible miniseries resulted in a greater demand among networks for faith-related material?

MD: I actually do. I think that there is a growing trend and awareness. I look at it in this way. The world is increasingly getting much more complex. We are experiencing (high) levels of terrorism and violence. There’s no clear path. Unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on how you look at it — when you come to issues like morality there’s no clear-cut good or bad…We make exceptions for celebrity. We make excuses for people’s behaviors in such in a way that I don’t think we would have twenty or thirty years ago.  So, when a world is in tumult between political, geopolitical (and) terrorist threats, (plus) the economy and so forth, I think…people gravitate toward stories that inspire them to feel connected to something larger than themselves. And, in this case, I think that’s faith. I think it’s a human connection. All of our stories try to really tell tales of redemption and transformation, relationship, forgiveness and, I think, in a confusing world, these become valued. I call it virtue-tainment because it’s less about proselytizing one’s faith than really connecting the audience to the virtues and values that, I think, we all hold dear but are sometimes lost in the over-commercialization of entertainment and then, of course, the headlines that impact us so gravely today.

JWK: What was it like working with Michael Landon, Jr., particularly as a director?

MD: Oh, Michael’s great! He’s amazing! He’s always got such a great attitude. On the set, he’s always the sort of the center of calm. He’s got a wicked, funny sense of humor and he’s exceptional with actors. He understands actors. He’s able to speak to them and he has a great affinity for this style of storytelling.  And, of course, I think his faith also brings something, (that) added value of authenticity.

JWK: You’ve partnered on this project with Believe Pictures, the company Michael formed with Brian Bird, and also Mission Pictures.

MD: Mission is our foreign distributor.

JWK: How do you put a deal like this together?

MD: Well, I had a relationship with Michael that goes back to when he pitched me at ABC…When I was at Hallmark Channel as head of original programming, he brought me a little script that he had written and adapted by this CBA author. It was…Janette Oke’s Love Comes Softly and…I thought this was a perfect story to put on Hallmark that was great general entertainment (with) great characters (and) great values. It had this faith element that I thought would be huge because that audience — the CBA audience — recognizes Janette Oke. She’s a beloved author. So, I knew there was a promotional opportunity. It was a good (property) for The Hallmark Channel. It fit with their family values (and) it was inspirational. I got that up and running and so, years later, when I came to Odyssey Networks, Michael and I got in touch and, of course, my predecessor Bill Reilly — who also knew Michael because he was one of the executive producers on Love Comes Softly — and we knew we wanted to work together. It was a matter of trying to find the right project, the right material. We…believed in the (Lancaster County) franchise and believed in Michael (so) we paid for the development of the script and the option and kind of did a backdoor development with Barbara Fisher (now with GMC) who was at Hallmark Channel at the time…So, we shouldered the financial burden of the project. We so believed in it and, as it turned out, Barbara fell more and more in love with the project and so that’s how (The Shunning) happened. When it was finished and it was ready, she saw what it could be a Mother’s Day movie and got us into production.

JWK: So, besides The Confession (The Shunning sequel) on Hallmark, Odyssey has The American Bible Challenge on GSN which is still doing well.