RELIGIONLINK.org The triumphs and tensions of faith based marketing.

"The Hollywood elites' eyes widened big time," Waliszewski said. "They said, 'I thought the church was dead. I didn't think people cared. Is it possible that we don't know what's happening in state after state?' And the answer is a resounding yes." Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians number an estimated 30 million in the United States, and Hollywood - faced with a prolonged slump in ticket sales - has followed its natural instincts in trying to tap one of the country's most powerful niche markets. "There's definitely more of an awareness, but it's just another group to be marketed to, albeit a very strong one, with incredible grass-roots tentacles," said Russell Schwartz, president of theatrical marketing at New Line Cinema, a Time-Warner company.

The vice chairman of Universal Pictures, Marc Shmuger, said, "It's a well-formed community, it's identifiable, it has very specific tastes and preferences and is therefore a group that can be located and can be directly marketed to."

Paul Lauer, who on his Web site calls himself an expert in the "faith and family" market, has been hired (by Disney) to work on "The Chronicles of Narnia," based on the C.S. Lewis literary fantasies, which Christian groups regard as an explicit allegory of Christ's Resurrection.

Jonathan Bock, a former sitcom writer who founded Grace Hill Media to specialize in Christian marketing, was hired to help sell Universal's "Cinderella Man," Fox's "Kingdom of Heaven" and Sony's "Christmas With the Kranks." And he is currently advising Sony on what is likely to be one of the most problematic movies of the coming year for Christian moviegoers, "The Da Vinci Code," based on the best-selling novel that challenges basic Christian dogma.

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