‘I Can Only Imagine 2’ Isn’t A Typical Sequel, Director Andy Erwin Says
Sequels get a bad rap for padding franchises, but this follow-up was never meant to be a cash grab. The filmmakers leaned into the hard questions that come after triumph, not before it.
What The Sequel Explores
Andy Erwin admits he was cautious about returning to a story that touched so many hearts. “I was terrified – I didn’t know if it would work,” and he added, “I just didn’t want to screw up what the first one did, and I didn’t want to go back to it if it was a gimmick. I was really skeptical.”
Still, his team convinced him to try a different approach, one that moves beyond reunion scenes and easy resolutions. The new film resumes years after the first, placing Bart Millard in the messy middle of fatherhood and artistic pressure.
John Michael Finley returns as Millard, with Trace Adkins back as Scott Brickell and Dennis Quaid appearing in flashbacks. Erwin co-directed alongside Brent McCorkle, choosing a quieter, character-led path instead of big studio sequel trappings.
The story pivots when MercyMe shares a tour bill with singer Tim Timmons, whose bright presence forces Millard to face what he’s been avoiding. Milo Ventimiglia plays Timmons and brings a grounded warmth that offsets Millard’s weary, private grief. That contrast drives the emotional engine of the picture.
“Tim has an amazing story that a lot of people don’t know,” Erwin said. “He wakes up every day grateful for another day, and marks an ‘X’ on his wrist with a Sharpie – he’s marking off a calendar for a day that he wasn’t promised.”
Why It Resonates
Erwin calls Timmons the story’s “catalyst,” and for good reason: his faith-steeped gratitude forces other characters to reckon with what they take for granted. The film asks a blunt question many of us ignore: what happens after the crowd goes home and the applause stops?
“It is this idea of ‘what happens if the happily ever after breaks?’ – what happens after you get everything you think you want, and the crowd goes home, and the applause stops, and life gets hard?” That line sums up the film’s refusal to pretend life is tidy when it is not.
The central thread is gratitude, but not as a feel-good slogan; it comes as a hard-won habit learned in the trenches of real relationships. “This movie is about Bart as a father having to come to terms with his own son, realizing that he feels not prepared, that his dad never taught him how to do his job – and what it results in is this story is gratitude. Gratitude is hope with teeth to it. It’s hope that’s fought for – and lived in. It’s something that you struggle to find.”
From a biblical viewpoint, that struggle is precisely where grace shows up: gratitude becomes a spiritual muscle that points beyond ourselves. The sequel refuses easy moralizing and instead offers a portrait of people learning to live hope in ordinary, painful moments. For viewers who want faith on screen that feels lived rather than lectured, this film aims squarely at that space.
I Can Only Imagine 2 is rated PG for thematic material and some language.
Ultimately, the movie invites audiences to sit with imperfect people who keep choosing gratitude anyway. It’s a reminder that faith is not escape but endurance, and that the applause is never the whole story.
View this post on Instagram