Born-Again Box Office

By DAVID VAN BIEMA

The definitions of a miracle and a Hollywood sleeper hit are not very far apart; both involve an extraordinary contradiction of what seems to be an ironclad natural order. Last week studio executives had a choice of interpretations as they cast their eyes over the weekend grosses. The No. 1 and No. 2 movies in the U.S. were, unsurprisingly, Fight Club and Double Jeopardy. But No. 10 was very unusual indeed. Not only had The Omega Code, by an unknown independent called Gener8Xion Entertainment, grossed $2.4 million in three days, but it had done so in a mere 304 theaters, yielding by far the highest dollars-per-screen figure in the Top 10. And the suits didn't know the half of it. The movie, it turns out, was funded by what the Hollywood Reporter's David Finnigan describes (fondly--he moonlights as a religion journalist) as "a little Christian cable channel most noted for one of its co-hosts' having enormous hair."

Call it the Blair God Project. Like the witchy summer hit, The Omega Code, starring Michael York and Casper Van Dien, was made on a modest budget--$7.2 million. And like Blair, it ran a remarkable under-the-radar promotion campaign. But where Blair used the Internet, Omega employed an even more unusual grass roots: it was sold almost exclusively through--and to--the Evangelical Christian community. Crowed producer Matthew Crouch: "I feel we've identified a new consumer group that Hollywood, Wall Street and Madison Avenue don't know exists. We've primed the pump, and there will be more to come."

Perhaps, but the film's success may elude duplication. It features a sprightly enough plot: codes hidden in the Bible lead the audience to an understanding that the Apocalypse, complete with York as the Antichrist, is unfolding around Van Dien. Given its budget, the quality of its writing, acting and production is remarkably high--about miniseries level. Crouch believes a narrative pivoting on predictions from the books of Daniel and Revelation is especially charming to literal-minded Christians. "The biblically based story points are what they get off on," he says.

That may be so, but what got them into the theaters was something different. The film's primary backer is Crouch's father Paul, CEO and star (with his bounteously bouffanted wife Jan) of the Trinity Broadcasting Network. TBN is actually not a "little Christian channel" but a giant in the sometimes overlooked field of televangelism. Showcasing preachers both black and white, it claims to reach 84 million homes and takes in some $80 million a year in contributions, primarily from 1.5 million "partners" who give annually.

It was this group that Omega Code galvanized. Starting a year before the film's release, TBN viewers were treated to occasional segments on its production; the segments aired nightly beginning in September. The message, says Susan Chaudoir of Omega's distributor, Providence Entertainment, was "You are helping us make this." In early August, the network ran an on-camera plea for volunteers to help promote the movie; the 2,000 respondents spread out into their neighborhoods and congregations with flyers and 100,000 posters. When theater owners agreed to put tickets on sale a month early, TBN aired videos of supporters buying blocks of 100 or even 1,000. Two Los Angeles ministers, with congregations of 12,000 and 18,000, each arranged to buy out that city's Magic Johnson Theatre for a day. "We made this an event," says Michael Harpster, Providence's marketing chief, "and the Christian audience could go and bear witness." Which they did, in droves. And the rest is Hollywood hallelujah.