Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas had a surprisingly strong opening weekend at the box office, grossing over $1 million in only 410 theaters.

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas Panned By Critics

Kirk Cameron, former heartthrob star of Growing Pains and outspoken born again Christian, stars in the Christian film, which earned $2,486 on average per-screen. Despite its success, Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas, written and directed by Darren Doane, was panned by critics.

The film follows Cameron as he tries to teach his brother-in-law, Christian (Doane), to find the true meaning of Christmas – Jesus – in all the materialistic celebrations that accompany the holiday. The tagline of the film is “Put the Christ back in Christmas.”

“Cameron does not want to hear about your history or your science, by the way. He challenges Christian… to back up his assertions that Jesus wasn’t born in December, or that Christmas trees are a holdover from celebrations of the solstice, and all Christian can do is stammer and blubber in the face of Cameron’s superior knowledge,” wrote The Wrap’s Alonso Duralde.

“Preaching aside, though, Saving Christmas is a shoddy 80-minute feature that contains approximately 50 minutes of actual moving footage. When Cameron narrates that materialism doesn’t go against Christmas because it celebrates the son of God being made material himself, it sounds like a defense of any kind of cheap, poorly made holiday crap – this movie included,” wrote A.V. Club’s Jesse Hassenger.

Despite the negative reviews, Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas did so well opening weekend that distributor, Samuel Goldwyn Films, has announced plans to gradually expand the film’s release beyond the original limited two-week engagement.

Kirk Cameron Tells Women To Decorate Their Homes For Christmas

Cameron has gotten himself into a bit of trouble with critics while promoting Saving Christmas. On Nov. 11, Cameron uploaded a video on his official Facebook page in which he urged mothers and wives to create a celebratory Christmas environment in the home, something many took to be enforcing a sexist tradition.

“Let your children, your family, see your joy in the way you decorate your home this Christmas, in the food that you cook, the songs you sing, the stories you tell, and the traditions that you keep… Invite your whole neighborhood into your Christmas and invite the world into our story of our king and his kingdom,” Cameron said in the video.