Following the groundbreaking success of Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion of the Christ’, Hollywood is awakening to the big-buck potential of church mobility, reports MSNBC.

|PIC1|Already across the U.S., congregations and communities have been gathering in their local churches to watch sneak previews of a new movie, not about God but rather, less expectedly, about golf.

“The Greatest Game Ever Played” is the latest offering from the Walt Disney Co. soon to hit the U.S. box office and is being marketed specifically to faith-based groups, despite its generally unreligious content.

Walt Disney Studios’ Dennis Rice commented on the film, which recounts Francis Ouimet’s improbable win in the 1913 U.S. Open: “Its themes are about family, about not giving up on your dreams, courage.”

He added: “They are very secular virtues, but they also could potentially be Christian virtues.”

At last, Hollywood is wakening up to the enormous potential of the Christian market to bring in millions of dollars worth in revenue. “The Passion of the Christ” grossed more than $400 million at cinemas worldwide, with millions more earned through the sale of the film on home video.

The success was largely attributed to a large-scale mobilisation within the church, with many reserving entire theatres for the opening day and others scheduling group viewing at the church or at home.

Disney is not alone in shifting its marketing focus toward the faith-based market. Other productions this year that have made a similar effort to pull in the crowds from this blossoming market are the recent father-son story “The Thing About My Folks” and the dark courtroom drama “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”.

|TOP|Promoters of “The Thing About My Folks” invited members of churches, synagogues and Jewish community centres were invited to more than 30 screenings in cities including Minneapolis, Cleveland and Chicago.

Paul Reiser, writer and co-star of the family comedy, encouraged faith-based communities to support similar smaller movies that otherwise might not bring in such big revenue: “If the powers that be see there is a bigger market out there, it will make it easier for the next time around.”

Filmmakers are pursuing a similar tactic with new movie “the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by calling in Motive Entertainment, the same group that marketed “Passion” to churches, to spearhead their campaign before the film’s release in December.

“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 Mr 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 has also recently launched a website, which includes a “church resources” link, for the purpose of marketing family-friendly or Christian videos directly to a religious audience (http://www.foxfaith.com). The site also features written guidance suggesting Bible verses to bring into discussion over particular scenes from the films.

Senior vice president of marketing at Fox Home Video said: “We recognise this is an underserved marketplace that was hungry for programming that mirrored their values.”

Robert K. Johnston, a professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena urged churches to get more involved or else find themselves excluded from this growing sub-culture: “Increasingly, the church realises that spiritual conversations are happening in the culture and we are in danger of being left out of the conversation.”