Hooray For Hollywood

VISCHER The hair is blue.

ALBOM Sometimes on network channels.

WILLIAMSON If 8 out of 10 Americans self-select as Christians, 80 percent do not consider themselves evangelical. If you want to reach a Christian market, I would suggest you begin with evangelical groups, but don't assume that that's the whole thing.

JENKINS There is this view, especially from New York or L.A. They'll say, ''We consider Left Behind the Harry Potter of the red states.'' It's like we all live in a holler and we're barefoot, wear coveralls, and handle snakes. They think you only go to The Passion and read Left Behind and that's it. You've got born-again Christians in this room who are very engaged with the culture and see most of the movies that come out, unless they're horribly offensive.

EW As businesspeople, you want to grow your audience. When we're talking about religious-themed product, that sort of creeps over into proselytizing and converting, which tends to scare non-Christians and people who don't have faith.

WINTER With Hangman's Curse, we're trying to get people who read Frank's book to see the movie. But we think Frank's work can have a wider audience. In terms of building a business, it's no different than doing X-Men, because X-Men is about hitting the core audience of comic-book readers and widening out from there.

VISCHER All marketing is about proselytizing. Diet Coke is trying to convert people from Diet Pepsi.

JENKINS That is sort of the crucible for evangelicals. I realize that our message is inherently offensive and divisive because we believe Jesus is the way to God. A lot of people assume because that's how I believe, if I share my faith with them and they say, ''That's fine for you, but I don't buy it,'' that then I would hate them or condescend to them or think I'm better than them.

VISCHER Or kill them.

JENKINS Exactly. And that's also antithetical to my faith. I should still care about the person, and give them respect. But we can't be cafeteria-style Christians, where you say this part of the Bible seems a little exclusivistic so I'll just ignore that and take the good stuff. We deal with the charge of: All you care about is winning souls. If there's a message in the Left Behind books, it isn't to offend. It's to inform. And then people deal with it however they will. It's up to them.

EW Any last thoughts?

WILLIAMSON You know, I have an image in my mind of the typical ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY reader.

ALBOM They haven't gotten past the second paragraph.

WILLIAMSON That's what I was about to say. If that person actually reads this whole article, I would be surprised because somebody who subscribes to ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY has already said that entertainment is an important part of their lives. Entertainment seems to have, sadly, become the new religion.

JENKINS Could you put a picture of Britney Spears in the middle?

VISCHER Just swap her picture for yours.