One of the most widely watched films in the world has no megastars, narrative twists or special effects. It bombed at the box office in 1979, earning a scant $4 million in U.S. theaters - less than its $6 million budget.

Yet the film went on to be translated into 950 languages, screened in 235 countries and has supposedly been seen some six billion times, reaching wider audiences than blockbuster movies such as "ET," "Star Wars" and "Titanic."

You've probably never heard of "Jesus," a docudrama of the life of Christ created by Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and John Heyman, a British filmmaker and financier.

But directors of The Jesus Project, an Orlando-based nonprofit foundation created to promote the film, claim it has led to 200 million conversions, making it one of the most potent evangelism tools since the Bible.

And if the makers of "Jesus" were shopping their script in Hollywood today, they would likely be banking on commercial as well as spiritual gains.

The staggering success of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which grossed $371 million domestically, forged an unexpected new alliance between conservative Christians and Hollywood, blurring the line between evangelism and entertainment and inspiring a new generation of biblical epics.

Movie executives quickly seized on the apparent revelation that faith sells.

Evangelicals still vilify portions of the film industry for promoting violence and sexuality, but now also see an effective medium for spreading their message to mainstream American audiences. This year, U.S. Christian leaders are praising some filmmakers for "finally putting Jesus Christ back into Christmas."

Last month, "The Nativity Story," a $65 million project from New Line Cinema about Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, became the first feature film to premiere at the Vatican. Advanced screenings were held for hundreds of congregations around the United States.

The movie, which opened Dec. 1 in 3,000 theaters nationwide, is one of several religious films to hit theaters this year. Others include "The Color of the Cross," a film that depicts Jesus of Nazareth as a black man; "One Night With the King," an adaptation of the Biblical story of Queen Esther; and "Facing the Giants," a feature film about a Christian high school football team that was produced - in a likely Hollywood first - by a Baptist church's "film-making ministry."

How did the entertainment industry - champion of such irreverent Christmas fare as the "South Park" special featuring Jesus pinning Santa in a fight - produce a film like "The Nativity Story," which Ted Baehr of the Christian Film & Television Commission called "a sacred movie and a divine revelation?"

Many attribute Hollywood's abrupt spiritual awakening to a worldly rather than divine inspiration: the financial impact of "The Passion." Sensing a successful formula, production companies have gone into overdrive in a rush to sweep up the faith-based market.

The Weinstein Co. recently struck a deal with Impact Productions, a Christian production company, to finance, co-produce and distribute their films. FoxFaith, a new division of 20th Century Fox that caters to the faith-based market, will release at least six religion-themed films next year, said Steve Feldstein, senior vice president of corporate and marketing communications for Fox Home Entertainment.

Good News Holdings, a Christian multimedia company, acquired film rights to Anne Rice's best-selling novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" for a tentative December 2007 release. The company, which plans to make "Christ the Lord" on an estimated budget of $40 million, is also developing a series of Christian-themed horror movies, according to its Web site.

"There's a huge untapped marketplace out there that is interested in films that reflect their values," Feldstein said.

To promote its religious titles, Fox has strung together a network of 90,000 churches, ministries, and Christian groups nationwide, Feldstein said. He quickly added that the company isn't looking to spread Christian values. Rather, Fox hopes to gain access to what it sees as an underserved and lucrative niche market.

According to CBA, an evangelical Christian trade group, the Christian market is a $4.2 billion industry.

"We're in the business of entertainment here at Fox," Feldstein said. "It's certainly not our job to preach or proselytize."

Pastors and Christian leaders interpret the trend differently, however.

For growing numbers of Christians entering the film-making business, big-name production companies can help them reach a much larger pool of potential converts.

Acrimony between conservative Christians and Hollywood hasn't completely evaporated in the post-"Passion" era, however.

Earlier this year, thousands of Christians around the country picketed movie theaters to protest "The Da Vinci Code," which they called an affront to their faith. Film studios have continued to churn out movies with critical or satirical views of Christianity in recent years, including "Saved," a feature film about a Christian high school that depicted Christian teens as sex-crazed, brainwashed hypocrites; "Jesus Camp," a controversial documentary about a fundamentalist summer camp in North Dakota for Pentecostal kids; and "Deliver Us From Evil," a documentary about a Catholic priest in California who admitted to molesting young boys and girls.

Christian commentators still frequently attack main streamfilm and television studios for spreading what they regard to be un-Christian values and mocking the faith. Gary Cass of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, a conservative Christian lobbying group in Fort Lauderdale, said that few Christians will convinced by Hollywood's new religious streak if the industry continues to peddle immorality.

"In the name of liberty, Hollywood has become licentious. Sex sells, and so does violence," Cass said in an interview. "It's a cheap way to make a buck."

Religious films of the past century

Jesus wasn't always an outcast in Hollywood.

From the early silent shorts depicting the crucifixion and resurrection to blockbuster biblical epics such as Cecil B DeMille's "King of Kings," "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben Hur," religious films were a staple in American theaters from the early 1900s to the 1950s, as common as romantic comedies and action movies today.

"A lot of the early films were well within the boundaries of religious piety and did not push the envelope," said Peter Gilmour, an associate professor of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University in Chicago who teaches a film class called "Jesus: Reel to Real."

That started to change in the 1960s, when Hollywood abandoned the "Production Code" - a set of moral guidelines established in 1930 that forbid filmmakers from ridiculing religion, among other things.

Here's a selection of Jesus movies from the past century that range from obscure to orthodox to mildly heretical:

1912: "From the Manger to the Cross," directed by Sidney Olcott, starring Robert Henderson-Bland

1927: "King of Kings," directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring H.B. Warner

1965: "The Greatest Story Ever Told," directed by George Stevens, starring Max von Sydow

1973: "Jesus Christ Superstar," directed by Norman Jewison, starring Ted Neeley

1973: "Godspell," directed by David Greene, starring Victor Garber

1977: "Jesus of Nazareth," directed by Franco Zeffirelli, starring Robert Powell

1979: "Jesus," directed by John Krish and Peter Sykes, starring Brian Deacon

1980: "The Day Christ Died," directed by James Cellan Jones, starring Chris Sarandon

1988: "The Last Temptation of Christ," directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Willem Dafoe

1989: "Jesus of Montreal," directed by Denys Arcand, starring Lothaire Bluteau

1999: "Jesus," directed by Roger Young, starring Jeremy Sisto

2004: "The Passion of the Christ," directed by Mel Gibson, starring James Caviezel

2006: "Son of Man," directed by Mark Dornford-May, starring Andile Kosi

2006: "Color of the Cross," directed by and starring Jean-Claude La Marre

2006: "The Nativity Story," directed by Catherine Hardwicke, starring Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary and Oscar Isaac as Joseph

(c) 2006, The Miami Herald.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.