{"id":23346,"date":"2023-02-10T10:50:58","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T15:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=23346"},"modified":"2023-03-16T15:15:24","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T19:15:24","slug":"big-george-foreman-film-details-boxers-journey-to-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2023\/02\/big-george-foreman-film-details-boxers-journey-to-ministry.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Big George Foreman&#8221; Film Details Boxer&#8217;s Journey to Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_23379\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23379\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/02\/george-forman_credit-Jack-Goodman-HBO-Courtesy-Everett-Collection-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23379\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2023\/02\/george-forman_credit-Jack-Goodman-HBO-Courtesy-Everett-Collection-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-23379\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jack Goodman\/\u00a9HBO\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The upcoming movie &#8220;Big George Foreman&#8221; trailer highlights the famed boxer&#8217;s journey from heavyweight champion to pastor and then heavyweight champion again.<\/p>\n<p>Releasing April 28, &#8220;Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World&#8221; stars Forest Whitaker, Khris Davis and Sullivan Jones. George Tillman Jr. directs it from a story by Dan Gordon, Frank Baldwin and Tillman Jr., with a screenplay by Baldwin Tillman Jr.<\/p>\n<p>The film is based on the remarkable true story of one of the &#8220;greatest comebacks of all time and the transformational power of second chances,&#8221; according to the film synopsis. It continues, &#8220;Fueled by an impoverished childhood, Foreman channeled his anger into becoming an Olympic Gold medalist and World Heavyweight Champion, followed by a near-death experience that took him from the boxing ring to the pulpit. But when he sees his community struggling spiritually and financially, Foreman returns to the ring and makes history by reclaiming his title, becoming the oldest and most improbable World Heavyweight Boxing Champion ever.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2023\/film\/news\/big-george-foreman-trailer-movie-1235412994\/\">Variety<\/a>, the forthcoming film will follow Foreman&#8217;s boxing career highlights, including when he obtained Olympic Gold at the 1968 Mexico City Games and his world heavyweight champion run. But it will also cover Foreman finding his faith, retiring and becoming a preacher.<\/p>\n<p>Foreman was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.georgeforeman.com\/pages\/church\">ordained a minister<\/a>\u00a0in 1978 and founded The Church of The Lord Jesus Christ in Houston, Texas, in 1980. In the trailer, he reflects on how sometimes, preaching is &#8220;just as hard&#8221; as getting &#8220;punched in the face.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6wfB0vhVSsM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The biopic also documents Foreman&#8217;s triumphant return to the ring at age 45, when his family and church faced financial hardship. He claimed the heavyweight champion title, becoming the oldest in boxing history to do so. The athlete famously won two heavyweight titles in 1973 and 1994, nearly a decade later. His &#8220;Rumble in the Jungle&#8221; fight with Muhammad Ali, who Jones plays in the film, is one of the most famous boxing events in sports history. Foreman\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/biography\/George-Foreman\">retired<\/a>\u00a0with a career record of 76-5 (68 by knockout).<\/p>\n<p>Foreman reflected on his shift from boxing to the ministry in his 2007 memoir,\u00a0<em>God in My Corner.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(In the late 1970s) I had occasionally been preaching in the church, and I loved to preach, so I bought thirty minutes of radio time on a Houston station and continued preaching. On my show, I talked a little about boxing and a lot about the good Lord. I was living in Humble, a suburb of Houston, so when I went into the city to do my radio show, it wasn&#8217;t unusual for several friends from my former church to ask me to lead a Bible study or to pray with them. Three or four of us met in various homes; soon there were six or eight, then ten people attending,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t really intend to start a new church, but eventually, we found it beneficial to organize.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World&#8221; also stars Jasmine Mathews, Sullivan Jones, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., John Magaro and Sonja Sohn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The upcoming movie &#8220;Big George Foreman&#8221; trailer highlights the famed boxer&#8217;s journey from heavyweight champion to pastor and then heavyweight champion again. Releasing April 28, &#8220;Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World&#8221; stars Forest Whitaker, Khris Davis and Sullivan Jones. George Tillman Jr. directs it from&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":23379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3630,6,7,1847,3],"tags":[5418,2309],"class_list":["post-23346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes","category-celebrities","category-entertainment","category-movie-trailers","category-movies","tag-george-foreman","tag-new-film"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Big George Foreman&quot; Film Details Boxer&#039;s Journey to Ministry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The film is based on the remarkable true story of one of the &quot;greatest comebacks of all time,&quot; according to the film synopsis.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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