Denise and Chris Bueno never imagined they’d walk the red carpet of a Hollywood-caliber movie premiere in New York City. But on Oct. 20, they rubbed elbows with stars as the Carmel-based distributors for 23 Blast. It’s the inspiring true story of star high-school football player Travis Freeman, who suffers an optic nerve infection, rendering him blind overnight.
The film marked actor Dylan Baker’s (Happiness, Anchorman 2) directorial debut. Supporting him at the NYC premiere were Hollywood notables like David Hyde Pierce (Frasier, Sleepless in Seattle) and Victor Garber (Alias, Milk).
The sun beams through a glass door in the Buenos’ Carmel home, which doubles as film distribution company Ocean Avenue Entertainment’s headquarters and sports a pair of glistening Lexuses in the driveway. Next to a stack of DVDs sits an integral piece of the home-office operation: a baby monitor for 4-year-old Huck, who’s taking his afternoon nap.
Company president Chris – clean-cut, with a boyish Opie Griffith haircut – is halfway through a cup of home-brewed Carmel Coffee House coffee. He founded Carmel Entertainment Group in 2003 to develop, produce and distribute motion pictures and documentaries that “tell engaging, entertaining and redemptive stories in which truth and hope prevail.”
“It’s difficult to cross over to a general audience.”
In 2009, Carmel Entertainment redefined its mission to focus on distribution, and Ocean Avenue was born. The company markets movies the Buenos think would appeal to both “faith-based” – they use the term to mean Christian – and mainstream audiences.
When Chris saw 23 Blast at the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival in 2013, he felt it was an embodiment of everything the company looks for in a film. He wasn’t the only person touched:23 Blast ended up snagging the Audience Choice Award.
While Baker and the film’s producers described 23 Blast simply as an Americana story, they agreed with the Buenos’ hunch it would appeal to Christian audiences, too.
“All audiences, faith-based or not, deserve good plot, good characters, laughs, tears,” Baker says.
As part of the distribution deal, Ocean Avenue promised a nationwide theatrical release. 23 Blast opened in more than 600 theaters Oct. 24 – locally, at Northridge Mall in Salinas. The film only grossed about $500,000 in its four-week theater run, but the Buenos are optimistic about its post-theater life on Video on Demand and other outlets.
Chris began in Christian television in the mid-’80s, working for evangelical National Inquirer headliners Jim Baker and Tammy Faye. From there, he moved on to faith-based documentaries. That’s when he noticed the lack of distributors good at getting these projects out to a mainstream audience. “Just because these films dealt with something like the history of the Bible didn’t mean people weren’t interested,” he says.
Denise, the company vice president and an active member of Carmel Presbyterian Church, sits next to Chris with the perfect posture of a small-town beauty queen. “If it’s a faith-based film, there’s an audience out there who would definitely love it,” she says, “but it’s difficult to cross over to a general audience.”
In 2004, after seeing a couple scenes of unknown writer/director Alex Kendrick’s new project – made on a $125,000 budget – Chris signed on to represent Facing the Giants. It’s the story of a Christian high school football coach, struggling with an unfaithful wife and community pressure to fire him.
It doesn’t have any big stars, but Chris felt it was well executed and had that winning crossover appeal. Just before signing a deal with FOX, Facing the Giants fell into the hands of Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, who viewed the film with his family. Sony’s deal, which involved a theatrical release, was much more compelling.
“[Sony] told me later that if it had done $1 million theatrically, they would’ve been very pleased,” Chris says. “It ended up doing $10 million.”
Facing the Giants defined the genre of a lower-budget movie with faith-based appeal, Chris says. It also opened the doors for its producers to negotiate subsequent films Fireproof and Courageouswith Sony. Fireproof, which Carmel Entertainment distributed and produced in association with Sherwood Pictures, raked in $33 million, making it 2008’s top-earning indie over Slumdog.
The Buenos say they can sense which movies will resonate with people. And that traces back to what resonates with them. “Our passion for life and living to our fullest comes out of our faith or relationship with Jesus Christ,” Chris says “I know we’re at our best, most loving, patient and forgiving when we view life through this worldview.”
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