RELIGION : Graham’s Studio Ready to Issue 1st Films Since Leaving Burbank

When World Wide Pictures left Burbank in 1988 and put its studio up for sale, it appeared that the motion picture arm of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. might have all but abandoned the Christian filmmaking business.

World Wide, founded 40 years ago, never grew large enough to compete with secular studios. Although “The Hiding Place,” a 1975 movie about Dutch Christians sheltering Jews during World War II, enjoyed critical success, the studio’s dramatic films were mostly popular evangelistic tools for churches.

Now, in its first major releases since moving to Minneapolis, World Wide is issuing a dramatic film, “Eye of the Storm,” starring Connie Selleca and Jeff Conaway, and a 37-minute documentary, “Zamperini: Still Carrying the Torch,” about a former Olympic track competitor and World War II prisoner of war, Louis Zamperini of Hollywood Hills.

If church bookings during the next several months indicate that the cost of the films will be recouped, the company plans to make eight others during the next two years--four dramatic productions and four documentaries, said Ken Engstrom, director of operations for World Wide.

“We think they will do well,” said Engstrom, who joined World Wide three years ago. “We’re taking a very active and aggressive approach.”

Engstrom also hopes to sell the studio in Burbank. Except for some interior scenes for “Eye of the Storm,” the studio has not been used, and the company has laid off staff.

“We’re looking seriously at offers,” he said.

World Wide has been asking for $6 million for the facility on Olive Avenue, which has about 50,000 square feet and is a few blocks from the Walt Disney and NBC studios.

Though now settled in offices within the Graham headquarters in Minnesota, World Wide continues to look to the Los Angeles area for story settings and resources--not only for the documentary but also for the drama written by Engstrom.

“Eye of the Storm” centers on a television reporter in Los Angeles struggling with success, his daughter and his lack of religious beliefs.

The cast includes Conaway who plays the newsman and who was Bobby on the long-running TV sitcom “Taxi;” Selleca, who played in “Hotel” and a variety of other TV productions, and Deborah Tucker, who has played in “Living Dolls” and “Dallas” on television. John Tesh, who is married to Selleca, plays himself--the co-host on “Entertainment Tonight.”

Engstrom said World Wide approached the actors “because of their professed faith in Christ,” but he said that it was not an absolute criterion.

“In our 1987 movie, ‘Caught,’ one of the lead characters was a practicing Sikh, for instance,” Engstrom said.

When World Wide Pictures left Burbank, producer Ken Wales, who did the $3.1-million “The Prodigal” for the Graham company in 1983, said it appeared the Graham ministry was phasing out its film work. He was also critical of World Wide’s standard technique of releasing the movies region by region to churches during a three-year period rather than making simultaneous theater releases accompanied by nationwide publicity.

The pattern still holds for “Eye of the Storm,” which cost about $700,000 to produce.

Engstrom said World Wide hopes to have the film shown by church groups at 20,000 locations--often in auditoriums or theater-like settings--in the next three to four years.

Promotional materials, including flyers, news releases and media guides, have gone out to selected large churches in the last few weeks to promote “Eye of the Storm.”

A 16-minute videotape directed at pastors shows scenes from the movie as Cliff Barrows, Graham’s longtime musical director, talks about its evangelistic value.

The first San Fernando Valley church to screen the movie will be Calvary Bible Church in Burbank, which will show it at 6 p.m. Sunday in its 1,100-seat sanctuary at Main and Alameda streets.

The Rev. Richard Laue, senior pastor of Calvary Bible, who saw the movie during a preview several weeks ago at the Disney studios, said he thought the drama ranked as one of the best done by World Wide.

“Some of them have been a bit hokey, too much like a fairy tale,” Laue said.

As in other feature films by World Wide, evangelist Graham shows up in the story line and on screen at some point. In this case, the newsman in the story happens to watch part of a Graham crusade on television as he begins to take seriously the religious advice of friends.

“On the believability scale, which is the way I rate Christian films, I’d say it was right up there, maybe an 8 on a scale of 10,” Laue said.