The True Story Behind ‘I Can Only Imagine 2’: How Bart Millard’s Son Inspired MercyMe’s Powerful Sequel
MercyMe’s frontman shares how grief and gratitude shaped the new film
Very few people’s lives inspire a hit movie, and it’s even more rare to inspire two, but MercyMe’s Bart Millard is seeing his life hit the big screen for the second time this weekend in I Can Only Imagine 2. John Michael Finley reprises his role as the award-winning singer/songwriter. Dennis Quaid returns as Millard’s father and Trace Adkins is back as MercyMe’s manager, Scott Brickell.
New to the sequel are Milo Ventimiglia as singer/songwriter Tim Timmons and Sammy Dell as Bart’s son Sam Millard. Sophie Skelton portrays Millard’s wife Shannon and Arielle Kebbel as Timmons’ wife Hilary round out the cast. Distributed by Lionsgate Films, the movie hits theaters on Friday, February 20. Get tickets to a theater near you now!
The true story behind ‘I Can Only Imagine 2’
Inspired by the 1999 multi-format hit song “I Can Only Imagine,” the first film chronicled Millard’s complicated relationship with his abusive father and wrestled with themes of forgiveness, redemption and the eternal hope of heaven. Winner of the 2018 Dove Award for Inspirational Film of the Year, I Can Only Imagine became a huge box office success. Directed by the Erwin Brothers, it changed perceptions of faith-based films due to its production quality and the skillful telling of a compelling story.
Yet when approached about the idea of a sequel, Millard didn’t think lightning could strike twice.
“Cindy Bond, who came up with the idea of doing the first Imagine, said she wanted to do something with the song ‘Even If.’ But I told her no for several years. Most of the pandemic was her trying to convince me that we should,” Millard says with a grin.
Bond was persistent and encouraged Millard to meet with screenwriter Brent McCorkle. He asked Millard what inspired the MercyMe hit “Even If.”
“I told him the story of how my son Sam was diagnosed with diabetes and the difficult relationship with that. By the time I was done, Brent was in tears and he said, ‘This is the movie,’” recalls Millard.
“So we went to Andy Erwin and said, ‘Man, could this be a sequel where it’s the same characters? And he’s like, ‘It’s definitely the sequel!’ They greenlit it really, really quickly and it happened pretty quick.”
How ‘Even If’ Inspired the ‘I Can Only Imagine’ sequel
The second film finds MercyMe selling out arenas and Millard living the life he dreamed of, but of course, no life is perfect and he wrestles with Sam’s illness and the challenges of fatherhood. “Just because you have success doesn’t mean that you have a problem-free life after that,” Quaid says.
“It doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be such an incredible dad yourself. You had this epiphany. It’s about the chain of fatherhood, I think, how things could end and bad things that you’re working on or things that gets passed on and how you break that chain or add to its strength.”
When asked what made him take on the character of Bart’s abusive father, Arthur Millard, Quaid responds, “It was a story of redemption, really. The real redemption that he had doesn’t take away any of the abuse that he dealt out to his son and really to others, but to get an understanding of that person and that relationship and what God has to offer to anybody on the gallows. He really was a person on the gallows.”
I Can Only Imagine 2 offers additional insight into Millard’s relationship with his dad and also delves into how he handles fatherhood and his son’s diabetes.
When asked if it was hard to put his painful experiences out to the public again in the new film, Millard says, “My grandmother used to tell me, ‘Don’t let your hurt go in vain,’ and I always took that [as if] you could help somebody along the way, then it would be worth it.
“This film was easier than the first one because the story of my dad being a redemption story, but he passed away and going back and telling it was hard, but this one, my son and I have an incredible relationship, so to be able to tell the story knowing where we are now was a lot of fun. This has been a totally different experience. I think it’s a better movie.”
Milo Ventimiglia and Tim Timmons: A friendship formed on and off screen
In addition to continuing Millard’s life story, I Can Only Imagine 2 introduces singer/songwriter Tim Timmons, MercyMe’s opening act, who is facing a tremendous challenge himself.
“When I found out that he was playing me, my daughters are huge fans and they were freaking out,” Timmons said of Milo Ventimiglia, who portrays him in the film. “I was like, ‘Who is this guy?’ and then watching his other shows, I got it. Then, meeting him in person and spending some time, it’s one of my favorite times of the movie process is actually becoming friends with him. Watching this person who lives and looks like Jesus on set and off set. He loves people and I believe Jesus loves people, so for me to have a guy like that playing me, what an honor!”
The admiration is mutual. “Getting to know him and now knowing him probably the rest of our lives is the gift and you are not often offered that. When you have a beautiful human being inside and out just there, giving you nothing but their love, how do you not give it back?” Ventimiglia says. “Tim is the most consistently loving human being I’ve ever met and it’s wonderful to see.”
Milo Ventimiglia’s powerful portrayal
As he prepared to film I Can Only Imagine 2, Ventimiglia was going through a time of both tragedy and joy. “I was prepping for this role when I had one of the largest losses in my life with my house burning in the fire in LA, and two weeks later, the birth of my first child.
“With those two things, I wondered what to do with these things that don’t really work well together? And reading about Tim in our script and learning about Tim in all of our conversations, I was like, ‘Oh, this is how you do it!’
“You hold the grief. You hold the gratitude, and you are grateful for every day that you wake up. So it’s one of those things where the art is pulled from life, and you wake up grateful to be a part of it.”
Balancing grief and gratitude: The powerful message of ‘I Can Only Imagine 2’
The cast and crew are proud of the new film and anxious for fans to see it. “It was just really the second half of a whole that I didn’t know we needed,” Erwin says of the new film continuing Millard’s story. “Do I think this movie is as great as the first movie was? I think this movie is better. I’m proud of it.”
Finley feels the takeaway from the new film is clear. “The grief and the gratitude, how can we hold them both at the same time?”
“Sometimes we think it’s either grief or gratitude,” adds Millard. “Life is holding them both, somehow being able to hold them both at the same time. That’s typically the way it’s going and there’s a beauty in God never said we wouldn’t go through difficult times. God said he’d just go through them with us. That’s what this is about and there’s gratitude in that.”
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