Writer/Director Joseph Holmes Discusses His Debut Sci-Fi Feature, “Jim vs. The Future”

Joseph Holmes just released his debut feature film, Jim vs. The Future. The sci-fi Christian movie tells the story of a graduate student who is “kidnapped and held hostage on Christmas Eve by people who claim to be from rival timelines. [They’re] trying to force him to make the choice that will preserve their future timelines.” What is that choice? Whether to break up with his fiancée. Holmes shared that he and his crew filmed the entire movie in six days in his apartment, which “was insane and super cool!”   

Growing up, Holmes’s family had a tradition of watching movies on Saturday nights and then discussing the obvious or hidden theology present in those stories. His parents were paramount in developing his critical-thinking skills, especially when it comes to film. The influences that shaped Holmes’s life also inform his work: family, friends, faith, experiences, etc.   

When creating Jim vs. The Future, his greatest inspiration was desperation. Since seeing Spiderman 2 in 2004, he has wanted to become a feature filmmaker whose work inspires others to be better people. Yet he has found getting funding and finding the right partners to be extremely challenging. He built up funding with the goal of shooting a different script, but the scope was too large for his budget. Nathan Clarkson, a friend of the channel and one of Holmes’s creative partners, guided him to make a movie featuring five people in one location. After much pacing through his apartment, Jim vs. The Future was born.   

The multiverse story—which suggests that every choice we make creates another timeline in which we choose the opposite—is, Holmes believes, the biggest myth of our day. “It imagines the world [where] our choices don’t really matter because whatever choice we make, the opposite choice gets made in a kind of cosmic way . . . .” He joked that Marvel only uses the plot device to allow for different cameos.  

Holmes said, “The Christian view of reality is that our choices really do matter, we do have significance in the world and we are not replaceable. Our choices are not replaceable.”  

Holmes created Jim vs. The Future out of a desire to reflect that worldview. “How are individual lives and the ordinary choices of our lives heroic? Because they really do define the future of the world for good and for ill.” The subversion of the classic multiverse narrative in Jim vs. The Future increases the stakes by making every decision influential.  

When it comes to genres, Holmes noted that the inspirational-drama trope in Christian films has proven to be lucrative, so studios keep pumping out that content. Venturing into other genres is not always rewarded financially.  

But restricting faith-based films to inspirational dramas limits their ability to explore life on a cosmic scale. Imaginative fiction helps people understand the bigger picture. When critics dismiss fantasy as not being real, they’re ignoring the fact that fantasy stories often touch on important real-world issues, whereas many non-fantasy narratives reflect a distorted worldview. For example, The Lord of the Rings explores numerous universal truths, even though many characters are elves, wizards, etc. On the other hand, 50 Shades of Grey is set in the real world, but it presents a twisted view of romantic relationships that is significantly more damaging.   

Holmes said he hopes Jim vs The Future helps viewers recognize the metaphysical implications of their actions and relationships “in a way where there’s a cosmic redemption at the center of it that you get to participate in.” While Holmes thinks Christian creators should continue making inspirational Bible adaptations, he believes there’s room in the faith-based entertainment industry to explore other genres as well.   

Holmes hopes that if people recognize that their humble decisions are acts of heroic defiance against evil, they will feel compelled to make wiser choices. He also expressed a desire to inspire other artists to make films that explore their own unique experience within the universe.  

Looking to his own future, Holmes wants to create more films that grapple with important truths.   

Jim vs. The Future is available to stream now on Amazon Prime!