Hollywood heads to church to promote films

Even potential blockbusters head to church
Disney is counting on Christian audiences to boost its “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

The film, based on the C.S. Lewis book, is a big-budget fantasy epic and the first in a series Disney hopes will rival the popularity of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Some Christians interpret the book — a staple of children’s literature — as an allegory in which the hero, the lion Aslan, represents Jesus Christ.

Disney hired Motive Entertainment, the same group that marketed “The Passion of the Christ” to churches, to sell “Narnia” to Christian audiences. Dozens of churches nationwide will host sneak peeks of parts of the film before its December opening.

“As good business people, we’d be silly not to tap into every fan of the book and hope they will become a fan of the movie,” said Disney’s Rice. “We don’t believe we’re making a Christian movie. We believe we’re following the story of the book faithfully and allowing everyone to interpret it how they want depending on how they’ve connected to the book.”

Twentieth Century Fox, which distributed the video of “The Passion,” recently launched a Web site (http://www.foxfaith.com) to target Christian and family-based films directly to a religious audience. The site includes a “church resources” link, which lists several movies and includes written guidance suggesting Bible verses to discuss in conjunction with scenes from the films.

“We recognize this is an underserved marketplace that was hungry for programming that mirrored their values,” said Steve Feldstein, senior vice president of marketing at Fox Home Video.

Fox defines the market broadly. It’s distributing such library titles such as “The Bible” and “The Sound of Music,” but also striking deals to distribute or produce films based on top Christian best sellers by Bishop T.D. Jakes and Frank Peretti. “It’s not necessarily who people are and where they live,” Feldstein said, “it’s how they think.”

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