Christian Filmgoers Create Heavenly Box Office for ‘Omega Code’

A church-based marketing campaign--the kind that usually rallies protesters against the evils of Hollywood--helped make the independent Christian film “The Omega Code” one of the nation’s top-grossing movies this week.

The film opened in only 300 theaters last weekend but still grossed about $2.5 million, earning more money per screen than “Fight Club,” the weekend’s top-grossing movie that took in $11 million from nearly 2,000 theaters.

“The Omega Code” cost $7.2 million to make and was financed by Costa Mesa-based Trinity Broadcasting Network, the nation’s largest Christian broadcaster. It was distributed through Providence Entertainment, a year-old Sherman Oaks company founded by Norm Miller, chairman of Interstate Battery System of America in Dallas.

The movie reached the 10th spot on the national list of top-grossing films but placed fifth in Orange County, according to Exhibitor Relations, the box-office tracking firm.

While religious themes in movies are not new--”The Ten Commandments” remains a classic--overtly religious pictures historically have not drawn well.

“Omega” producer Matthew Crouch, son of TBN co-founder Paul Crouch Sr., likened the strong showing to “lightning striking.”

Viewer support continued during the week, averaging about $500 per screen through Wednesday, according to AC Nielsen EDI.

“The weekday [draw] has been comparable with the other pictures, so it isn’t just the weekend,” said Philip Garfinkle, a Nielsen senior vice president.

The film will need another week or two of strong results to assure that it will be a financial success. Still, the movie’s weekend box-office performance surprised even some industry veterans.

“I was just like, ‘What the hell is this?” said Eamonn Bowles, president of distribution for the Manhattan-based Shooting Gallery. “But when I heard what the film was about, I wasn’t surprised at all that it did the business it did.”

Bowles helped market “The Apostle,” Robert Duvall’s 1997 film about the redemption of an evangelical minister. Duvall, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance, made appearances on Christian talk shows and invited ministers to view the film before its release, Bowles said.

The Christian market is huge, “and there are no films for it,” Bowles said. “There are so few films that treat evangelical Christians with any measure of respect.”

Yet some in the industry question whether isolated successes can translate into a larger trend.

At Edwards Cinema in Westminster Mall, assistant manager Diana Brown said moviegoers buying tickets for “The Omega Code” said they rarely go to the movies. “A lot of Christian people who have come said they thought this film would be worth seeing,” Brown said.

The movie, which stars Michael York and Casper Van Dien, is a modern-day retelling of the biblical story of Revelation, which some fundamentalist Christians believe prophesies the end of time. In the movie, a Torah scholar discovers a hidden code that unlocks the secrets of the end of the world and becomes the focus of an epic struggle between good and evil.

The movie has been lightly reviewed.

Ironically, the movie carries a PG-13 rating because of violent shooting scenes--the kind of cinematic treatment often condemned from church pulpits.

This time, though, churches played an active role in the movie’s initial success, in some areas of the country buying out theaters to allow entire congregations to attend.

Crouch said about 2,000 people volunteered through TBN to spread the word about the movie, plastering posters in laundermats, churches and movie theaters. The movie also was plugged on Christian Web sites, including TBN’s site, and on regional Christian broadcasting networks.

The spike in attendance for the first weekend was fueled in part by the decision to sell advance tickets, many of them through the national Family Christian Bookstore chain.

Crouch said he has four other scripts ready to enter production through his Echo Park-based Gener8Xtion Entertainment company but that he is still looking for production agreements. “The Omega Code” was produced under contract with TBN, and there is no commitment for further projects, he said.

Bob Bassett, dean of the School of Film and Television at Chapman University in Orange, said the movie’s initial success seemed to follow a pattern similar to that of “The Blair Witch Project,” another independent film that followed a cyber-marketing campaign to become a surprise hit earlier this year.

At the Westminster theater, those coming out of the film gave it mixed reviews. Several people, describing themselves as Christians, said they expected the plot to more closely follow Revelation. But for many, it was a rare opportunity to see biblical stories on the big screen.

Ticket taker Gordon Mayfield, 29, said he first heard about the film on TBN. He brought his mother to see it.

“I would say they did a very good job promoting this movie,” Mayfield said. “It wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be like, though. They only mentioned Jesus Christ once.”