startribune.com
A film premieres in church basements
Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune
October 21, 2005
Coming soon to a church basement near you: the end of the world.
A new movie based on the wildly popular "Left Behind" novels is having its nationwide premiere tonight on 3,200 screens, a wide release by Hollywood standards. But instead of in multiplexes, those screens will be in churches large and small, 45 of them across Minnesota.
The makers of "Left Behind: World at War" are gambling that this experiment will simultaneously be a powerful evangelical tool, while challenging Hollywood's relentlessly secular ways and be a moneymaker to boot. And they are literally preaching to the converted, aiming a film about the millennial end times described in the Bible's book of Revelation.
They are aiming directly at an audience of Christian believers.
"Look, you have 200 million people in America who identify in some way with Christianity, so it's been a mistake to think movies have to downplay Christianity," said Peter Lalonde, co-CEO of Cloud Ten Pictures, which produced the film. "And with the hurricanes, earthquakes and everything, a lot of people in America are asking if this is the end. We're saying come see a movie about this stuff."
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http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5681319.htmlBob von Sternberg • 612-673-7184
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