A movie adaptation of Donald Miller’s New York Times bestselling novel, Blue Like Jazz, has finally premiered in Australia this week after almost four years of wrangling for funding and distribution.

When Director Steve Taylor, best known as a Christian singer/songwriter and particularly for his work with Newsboys, read Blue Like Jazz almost seven years ago, he knew it had the bones for a great movie.

Taylor told the audience at the Sydney premiere last night he showed up at one of Donald Miller’s book readings and pitched him the movie idea. The duo worked on a screenplay together, developing a storyline out of the book’s “stream of consciousness” style, a collection of essays and thoughts rather than a linear story.

The movie adaptation sees Miller’s autobiographical character, Don, as a Southern Baptist college freshman from Texas who transfers to Portland’s notoriously liberal Reed College. It’s the first and most obvious departure from the book, which outlined Miller’s true experience of the College as a 30-something class auditor, crashing classes to soak up the knowledge, without paying or being graded.

“The story of a 30 year old writer who lives off campus isn’t really movie material,” said Taylor of his decision to create the new movie storyline.

Blue Like Jazz has been called a rite of passage of young Christians struggling with the hypocrisy and increasing politicization of the church. It’s also been heavily criticised as at times self-indulgent and offering a simplistic view of church and faith, though Miller himself admits his faith has changed since he wrote the book (see here).

Yet despite the book’s runaway success– spending more than forty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and selling well over a million copies– interest in Blue Like Jazz the movie was not forthcoming.

“We just assumed people would be longing to make the movie. Turns out, we were wrong,” says Taylor.

Three and half years after the screenplay was finished, Taylor and Miller still had no money. Investors had pulled out, and Miller made an announcement on his blog that they’d have to pull the plug.

“That’s when people started writing in to Don, telling him they’d like to help,” says Taylor.

After setting up a Kickstarter.com site for crowd-funding, the movie raised over $340,000 in 30 days from enthusiastic fans wanting to see the movie come to fruition. It was the most money ever crowd-funded for a movie project.

“I naively made a promise that if people gave $10 or more to the project, I’d call them personally to say thank you,” says Taylor. “I ended up having to make about 3,500 calls – including to people in Australia!”

One of those Australians was Tamara Taylor who two years ago decided to contribute $50 to the movie project.

“I read Blue Like Jazz about a month after I became a Christian, and it really shaped the way I thought through faith. I think I’m much more honest in that, even today,” she told Eternity at the Sydney premiere.

Tamara, 23, is now a student minister at St Paul’s in Hornsby (north Sydney), starting at Moore Theological College in February. She received her thank you call from Steve Taylor only a few days ago, and says she loves the way the movie turned out.

“It’s raw, it’s not cheesy. You couldn’t make it into a sermon – I like that about it. I don’t there’s much I would change.”

Steve Taylor hopes Blue Like Jazz the movie will be viewed differently than others in the ‘Christian movie’ category.

“Christian movies don’t have a good reputation,” he says. “One Hollywood guy I know says Christian movies are like pornography: poorly lit, poorly acted, and you always know how the story will end. We really didn’t want to get tagged with that image.”

Instead, Taylor says thinks the movie is one you could bring anyone to, without apologising for it.

Referring to the famous Confession Booth scene, where in the book, Don sets up a confession booth in the middle of Reed College, and uses it to apologise for his own sins and those of the church, Steve says: “There’s nothing better to start a conversation than an apology. It opens up all sorts of possibilities. We’re hoping that after seeing the movie, it’ll open up those conversations with the people you bring along.”

Blue Like Jazz is being distributed in Australia by Heritage HM, in cinemas from 24 February. See www.bluelikejazzthemovie.com.au for more details.