Director Derek Cianfrance On ‘Roofman’: A True Story Of Faith Hollywood Rarely Tells

“Roofman” doesn’t look or sound like a faith-based movie.

The film follows a prison escapee named Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum) who hides out in a toy store while wooing a naïve divorcee (Kirsten Dunst). Paramount Pictures isn’t known for producing religious fare, and director Derek Cianfrance made his name with gritty tales like “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond the Pines.”

Plus, it’s based on a true story. Look closer.

The October release focuses on the divorcee’s tight-knit Christian community. The church welcomes Jeffrey, provides him with support, and is portrayed in a uniformly positive light.

As a result, the real-life figures in the Manchester saga, including the woman played by Dunst, have forgiven Manchester for his transgressions. It helps that the character and the real-life criminal aren’t cruel by nature.

He was a kinder, gentler crook, and the film leans into that dichotomy along with some powerful, redemptive arcs. Tatum’s character spends much of his time clowning around inside a Toys “R” Us store, chomping candy, and entertaining himself long after the last customer had left the store.

Photo Credit: Davi Russo/Davi Russo. Copyright 2025 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

That tone and approach to the spiritual themes was by design, according to Cianfrance.

The director tells The Daily Wire he spent roughly 400 hours talking to the real Jeffrey Manchester, a former California U.S. military sergeant, from prison over a span of four years. 

“I wouldn’t have made the movie if I hadn’t been able to talk to him,” Cianfrance said. The Hollywood veteran learned about not just Manchester but the community that took him in during a curious time in his life.

“The pastor had created this ideologized little society. It was diverse. Old people. Young people. Rich people. Poor people. All different races,” said Cianfrance, who grew up Catholic. “They welcomed everyone.”

The director made sure that spirit infused the film, and he acknowledges that Hollywood doesn’t always capture faith in a positive way. That’s being generous.

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“In Hollywood movies, they present Christianity or the church, any kind of church, in a very negative light. It’s almost like a punchline, something to satirize … I don’t have that perspective in my heart,” he said.

Manchester’s stint outside of jail allowed him to find a welcoming community, a positive sign in a rather twisted story. “We’re so divided as a society … this movie was a chance for me to shine a light on them.”

He still wasn’t entirely sold on the project at first. On paper, the saga of Jeffrey Manchester seemed too surreal even for a feature film.

The real Manchester robbed his fair share of fast-food joints, but he also extended kindness to the startled employees along the way. An early scene in “Roofman” finds Tatum’s character giving his jacket to a worker who he steered into the restaurant’s cooler so he would stay warm until the authorities arrived to free him.

Photo Credit: Davi Russo/Davi Russo. Copyright 2025 PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

He also had a path to freedom at one point in his journey, according to Cianfrance, but he chose to reunite with someone he met during his prison break instead.

“His humanity made him a less effective criminal,” the director said, and that triggered his creative Spidey Senses. “I asked myself, ‘Is this for real?” That led him to chat with Manchester for hour upon hour, but he still wasn’t convinced.

He had to speak to the people in his life, the members of Crossroads Church whom he bamboozled.

“They validated all of his stories, even the crazier ones,” said the director, implying he left some material out of his script to keep the film credible. He expected the church’s pastor, Ron Smith, and Leigh Wainscott to be furious with Manchester’s deceptions. Their memories of him proved much more complicated and empathetic.

“They were the ones who redeemed him,” Cianfrance said.

Manchester has accepted his fate as an inmate at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C. He knows he repeatedly broke the law and only disagrees with the length of his sentence, according to Cianfrance. His release date is December 2036.

Manchester eventually gave “Roofman” and Cianfrance his blessing via their string of phone calls.

“Derek, this is my story, but it’s your movie … I want you to make your movie,” he recalled.

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The director’s film came in with a $19 million budget, a small sum for an industry struggling to share original stories untethered to established IPs. That made its modest $8 million opening frame acceptable by industry standards.

What Cianfrance finds unacceptable is the sudden, shocking threat AI poses to his industry.

“Writing is hard … staring at a screen and not knowing [what to write]. It’s the struggle where you find the journey, the process of writing that I love,” he said. “It’s not about getting it right or finding the solution.”

“I embrace the mistakes not the perfection,” he continued. “I think what makes us all unique is not how perfect we are, it’s our flaws. The human flaws can’t be replicated by AI.”

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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.