A testament to a huge market

The studios rejected it. The critics have not been allowed to see it. But when "The Passion of the Christ" opens Wednesday in 2,800 theaters, Mel Gibson's controversial film about the last 12 hours of Jesus' life is expected to earn as much as $30 million in its first week of release.

For mainstream Hollywood, which once scoffed at the commercial potential of a subtitled biblical tale starring virtual unknowns, these box-office predictions are an eye opener. For Gibson's network of true believers -- the millions of evangelical Christians who make up the leading flank of his celluloid crusade -- the big opening will be no surprise.

They have worked toward this moment for years, through Bible study groups, football stadium rallies, and youth ministries. They have opened thousands of bookstores, pressed enough CDs to corner 7 percent of the music album industry, and founded radio networks that stretch from California to Boston. Now, with the help of a bona fide Hollywood star, they are expected to demonstrate the economic power of an often unnoticed billion-dollar market run by and for evangelical Christians.

"It would be as crazy for us not to be ready for this movie as to not be ready for Christmas," says Bill Anderson, president of the Christian Booksellers Association, which has asked its 2,400 retailers to sell tickets to "The Passion" in their stores. "Gibson has done a great job of taking this movie to gatekeepers and opinion shapers, everybody from the pope to Billy Graham. From there, the network is playing a huge role."

The evangelicals tapped to promote "The Passion" exist outside the mainstream commercial world of books, films, and music. They tend to reject Hollywood-produced pop culture, believing that even entertainment should serve a Christian purpose.

Rather than work through the mainstream media, they have created their own. Trinity Broadcasting alone owns 5,000 television stations. The Christian Booksellers Association recently released a study indicating that sales of Christian products through the group's retailers earned just under $4.2 billion in 2002.

The most notable successes to cross from the Christian market to the mainstream have been literary. Books in the apocalyptic "Left Behind" series regularly top the New York Times bestseller list. Christian musicians sell about $850 million in albums a year. And "VeggieTales, an animated video series for children that is marketed by Christian Video Etc., has spawned a theatrical release movie and popular CDs.

In building awareness for "The Passion of the Christ," Gibson's production company and Newmarket Films, the movie's distributor, started with the audience most likely to receive it favorably: committed churchgoers and those who want to reach them.

On its website, the media company Outreach Inc. says the movie is "perhaps the best outreach opportunity in 2,000 years." Outreach has been sending free fan kits, with everything from door hangers to posters, to people looking to spread word of "The Passion" and help bolster church membership. The youth ministry Teen Mania has developed a CD-ROM with a six-week curriculum. Then there are the trinkets: Bob Siemon Designs in California has produced jewelry inspired by "The Passion," including a pewter nail necklace retailing for $16.99, that is sold online and at Christian bookstores.

"It's like a parallel universe," says Josh Baran, a New York public relations consultant. He has worked on the opposite side of the evangelicals as a publicist defending "The Last Temptation of Christ," the 1988 Martin Scorsese film whose opponents labeled it blasphemous for imagining Christ having sex. "These are people who don't go to movies because they're too violent and too sexy. But ["The Passion"] is a movie they embrace."

A few months ago, Baran says, he listened as movie industry insiders and journalists dismissed the commercial potential of "The Passion." Gibson wondered out loud whether he might earn back his investment on a film told in Latin and Aramaic, with subtitles, and gory enough to have earned an R rating. In addition, controversy surrounded the film as Gibson's father, Hutton, questioned the casualty toll of the Holocaust. Gibson, who belongs to an ultraconservative Roman Catholic sect that rejects the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, also angered Jewish leaders concerned that his interpretation of the Bible would blame the Jews for Christ's death.

The controversy and increased media coverage only heightened Baran's expectations for the film. Hollywood prognosticators are now starting to see the light. So are the companies licensed by Gibson to create products for the movie. Tyndale House Publishers has reported that 150,000 copies of a coffee table book about the movie have been sold, which landed it in the top 10 on Amazon.com. When it came to promotion, Gibson started early. Although movie critics from mainstream media will not get to see the film until tomorrow -- a mere two days before release, a tiny window for a movie getting such widespread play -- Anderson of the Christian Booksellers Association was shown a rough cut last June. Gibson introduced it personally during a screening at the Colorado Springs campus of Focus on the Family, the ministry run by James Dobson.

The screenings paid off. In July, Anderson invited Gibson back to the bookseller group's conference in Orlando, Fla. Dobson and Graham, the world's most famous living Christian preacher, offered endorsements. So did the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 43,000 congregations and was selling tickets to the movie through its website.

The evangelical network did not develop yesterday. It dates to Martin De Haan, a gravelly-voiced physician who in 1938 launched a radio Bible class that grew to reach 500 stations. Graham, a Southern Baptist raised in North Carolina, launched his crusades in the late '40s, eventually packing Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Christian Booksellers Association was founded in 1950. In 1963, David Wilkerson published his memoir, "The Cross and the Switchblade," leading to the first multipronged Christian media product, a 1972 film starring Pat Boone. By the '80s, Christian musicians such as Amy Grant were selling millions of albums. Grant, in turn, told her fans to support author Frank Peretti, who quickly became one of the Christian-book genre's most successful writers.

With more products to push, it was inevitable that the evangelical Christians would need to develop a publicity machine.

"The challenges of Christian PR are unique," says Reg Grant, a professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary and head of the school's media arts program. "A secular PR firm might say to the artist, `Let's pump you,' while the Christian artist wants to pump God. If you don't have an agency that is at least conversant in the problems Christians have when promoting a product, you're entering an alien world."

Concerning the mainstream media, Gibson was either indifferent or downright combative. By contrast, the director and a team of Christian PR professionals have romanced the evangelical community. That has meant looking to the Bible Belt and big churches to spread the word.

Namesake Entertainment followed that model last year while promoting "Hangman's Curse," the film of Peretti's 2001 novel, about a pair of teens who, in a van called the Holy Roller, try to find the cure for a debilitating illness. The Kentucky-based company did not rent out a luxury hotel in New York City and fly in the nation's movie critics, which is often how Hollywood films are promoted. Instead, Namesake headed to Oklahoma City. Peretti appeared at a youth group meeting one night, with five churches busing in congregants. Although the film played only on a small number of screens, the company is hoping for a big boost when it comes to DVD this month.

Despite the long tradition of Christian films, they are generally B-level movies with titles such as "Escape From Hell" and "The Miracle Maker." But Gibson, a proven Hollywood star who won an Oscar for directing 1995's "Braveheart," brings far greater artistic expectations.

"Christians aren't stupid," Peretti says. "And if you give them a crummy movie, they won't go. But when you've got Mel Gibson, a major name, and a major budget, that's going to be high-caliber."

The film is likely to have a long-lasting impact. "Jesus," the 1979 film made by Campus Crusade for Christ, earned only $4 million during its theatrical run. But as an evangelical tool, it has been dubbed into hundreds of languages and sent unsolicited to millions of homes.

Baran expects a similar aftermarket for Gibson's film.

"There's no `Passion II,' " Baran says. "There's no sequel. This is not a movie, but an evangelical opportunity to convert souls to Jesus. They're going to sell tens of millions of DVDs of this."

Before that comes the theatrical opening. One theater in Plano, Texas, will devote all 20 screens to the film and play it for 24 straight hours thanks to Arch Bonnema, a local insurance company owner who spent $42,000 to rent the cineplex.

In Massachusetts, the reaction has been more reserved.

"I'm sorry, this is New England," says Ginny Van Meter, general manager of Whittemore's, a Christian bookstore in Needham. "I've heard some pastors that are excited, but I don't know of any busloads going to it."

There is not much buzz, either, among members of Vision New England, which represents 5,000 churches.

"It sounds like a lot of hype," says Dave Ryder, dean of pastoral staff at Grace Chapel in Lexington.

Ryder plans to see "The Passion" with church leaders but is not sure he will return with members of his congregation.

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com