Movies, Money, & God

At times, Hollywood has managed to capture the Christian market — never more so than with Disney's $292 million-grossing hit The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which appealed to Christians as a faith-inflected fable and to secular audiences as a big, cool movie with a witch and a talking lion. But in other instances, studio marketers have proved tone-deaf, as when Universal tried to lure churchgoers to its vaguely faith-themed big-budget comedy Evan Almighty, in which Steve Carell is commanded by God to build an ark. ''The studio was in an untenable position,'' says one veteran marketing consultant. ''They put Steve Carell naked in a bunch of ads, trying to get fans of The Office, and that made all the Christian mommies go, 'Hmm. I don't think I'll take my 9-year-old to that.''' In some cases, films that have nothing whatsoever to do with religion have been marketed to church leaders simply because they felt inspirational. ''Things have gotten pitched to pastors that don't make any sense at all,'' says Vischer. ''Rocky Balboa was pitched to pastors with a devotional guide! It's lunacy.''

Meanwhile, smaller-scale films made by and for the Christian faithful, which have long existed under the mainstream radar, have started to break through to wider success. Last year's Kirk Cameron drama Fireproof, about a firefighter who saves his marriage by renewing his faith in God, cost just $1 million and grossed $33 million. ''With the faith audience, they need to understand the heart behind the film,'' says Kris Fuhr, vice president of Provident Films, the Sony subsidiary that produced Fireproof. ''Does it have to be a sermon or an altar call? No. But it has to be something that inspires them. They see we believe in the film, and they trust us.''

When it comes to faith, that trust is not so easily earned by bottom-line-driven Hollywood. ''The values of Hollywood and the church overlap sometimes, but they're completely different models,'' says Simon Swart, an executive VP at Fox Faith. ''Hollywood is very commercially minded, whereas the church is all about values. That's the constant challenge.''

Hollywood and the Christian community may have made some strides to find common ground, but the Catholic League's Donohue hasn't gotten the memo. In his mind, not only is faith not accorded respect by Hollywood, it's scorned on a regular basis by an industry he once said is ''controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity.'' (He later said he regretted that characterization.) Donohue is speaking out loudly against Angels & Demons. He knows he may only help boost ticket sales (even a Vatican official reportedly warned of the ''boomerang effect'' of protest). But he points to 2007's The Golden Compass — which many Christians believed to be antireligious — as a case where protests made a difference. The film fared so poorly that a sequel was canceled. ''There's a risk involved, but it's a risk I'll take,'' Donohue says.

Having already incurred the wrath of many of the world's one billion Catholics with The Da Vinci Code, Howard isn't surprised by Donohue's charges. But that doesn't mean he accepts them. Last month, after Donohue attacked Angels & Demons in an op-ed in the New York Daily News, Howard fired back on the Huffington Post. ''Our movie gives Donohue a hell of a soapbox to stand on,'' the director says now. ''We always just ignored it, but for him to imply that we're on a mission to ridicule or damage the Catholic Church — it's important to be on the record that that's not what I had in mind at all.''

Then again, the makers of Angels & Demons didn't go out of their way to court the Christian community. '''Here's your Angels & Demons [church]flier''' producer Brian Grazer says with a dry laugh. ''No, I don't think we've done that.'' Sony distribution head Jeff Blake puts it this way: ''Angels & Demons is a thriller. It's just a big summer movie that you're trying to get everybody into. It was certainly never approached as: How do you market this specifically to the Church? We welcome them to see it, and if there's controversy, so be it.'' For his part, Brown — whose next installment in the Langdon series, The Lost Symbol, will be published this fall — insists his work is not theology. ''My goal in writing these novels has only ever been to create stories I find personally captivating,'' he tells EW via e-mail. ''These are fictional stories that generate discussions on important issues, which, in my view, can only be positive.''

The fact remains that whatever efforts have been made to bridge the gap in the years since The Passion, the flare-ups between Hollywood and the Christian community are still useful for both sides. Controversy — whether it's invited or not — is free publicity. As long as that age-old dynamic holds true, it's hard to imagine Hollywood and the church lying down together like the lion and the lamb.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Jensen, Lynette Rice, Sean Smith, Nicole Sperling, and Adam B. Vary)

What's All The Fuss?

Angels & Demons is less divisive than The Da Vinci Code but some Catholics still object to the novel's plot. Here's why:

War on science
Brown's story depicts a church that has long opposed the march of science — to the point of systematically murdering scientists.

Papal politics
In Angels & Demons, some within the Vatican are so bent on attaining ultimate power that they may be willing to kill for it.

Secrets and lies
The Catholic League's Donohue says Angels & Demons wildly exaggerates the history of the Illuminati. The secret society, he says, existed only for about a decade, not centuries, and Galileo was never a member.