HJ: So on that track, when it comes out on DVD as is usually the case these days, are there going to be extended scenes?

GW: There will be deleted scenes, yes. I cut lots from the movie and we cut twenty minutes from the beginning. The first cut took forty minutes to get to Malcolm McDowell. And we said we can't have that. Now he gets in at about twenty minutes. We cut a scene from later at the pier where we introduce him, and that added an element of suspense at the beginning. So we moved that way up front. His character has an ending that's different in the novel that we shot but that didn't work for the movie. So a whole alternative ending is going to be on the DVD. We have tons of scenes with Daisy Stokes praying. We have whole other scenes with her and Jo. We have a whole throughline that was just different, for us to streamline the movie and make it better we had to do that.

HJ: When do you think that might be coming out?

GW: Probably next May, probably somewhat in conjunction with the National Day of Prayer. That's kind of where we've hung our hat, the movie about prayer. I think we can meet that expectation in audiences.

HJ: You said in the press kit we were given that "sometimes you have to jump in with both feet." How does that look here?

GW: I was just going to be the producer of the movie, period. That's all. I was hired as the producer. At a certain point I was so emotionally invested in it, it was like, “Well, I guess I'll just keep writing.” And it came to be that I was one of the screenwriters. And we looked at other directors and nobody fit the vision. I have a vision statement for my company. It's very simple. "To help visionaries reach their vision." I believe in the divine spark. I believe that God gives visionaries vision. I think that what happens a lot of times in adaptations of novels is that they remove the visionary. God gives them this vision, they write the book, and then somebody goes and takes the novel and makes it their own vision. I don't want to do that and so I filter everything I do through helping visionaries reach vision. In this case it meant helping Robert Whitlow make this into a movie. And here jumping in with two feet means at a certain point I knew that I would need to step in and be the director because it would keep the vision to what he was happy with. At the end of the day I believe God gave him a vision for the novel. He'd never written one before, this was his first novel. And I believe that God has touched the novel. So my family moved to Wilmington for a year just to make the movie. I was all in, Everything in our lives was about The List. I never expected to be the writer/director. I was just going to help produce. I was going to bring in a co-producer. That was both feet. And I believe in the story of Peter walking on water. I believe that so much for our own lives. If you want to walk on water you've got to get out of the boat. You've got to attempt things that are great. Peter gets a bad rap because he sank, but you know what; as far as we know there are only two people in the history of the world that have ever walked on water, and that's Jesus and Peter. He got out of the boat and I think sometimes you've got to get out of the boat.

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