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 6 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, Fla.-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."

THE VATICAN WATCHES

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 in 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 "filmmaking 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?"

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

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 filmmaking 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.

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 mainstream film 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, Fla., said that few Christians will be 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. "It's a cheap way to make a buck."

JESUS IN HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood didn't always treat religion in tones that were mocking, controversial and, in films such as "The Last Temptation of Christ," mildly heretical. In the early days of studio film, the two most popular subjects were religion and romance, said Peter Gilmour, an associate professor of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University in Chicago who teaches a film class called "Jesus: Reel to Real."

By the 1960s, Hollywood's appetite for religious films started to fade. Around the same time, Christians who were alarmed by the secularization of the mainstream media began to build a parallel entertainment industry through religious television networks.

Now that Christians are crossing into the mainstream, establishing their own screenwriting programs and Los Angeles film festivals, the secular and religious entertainment industries seem poised to merge.

But theologians such as Robert Johnston, professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and author of "Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue," remain skeptical that Christian movies will transcend the sentimental and literal tone that have so far defined them.

Based on the limp reviews and weak box office sales that greeted "The Nativity Story" and other religious films this year, some have begun to ask whether the success of "The Passion" can be replicated.

"It's yet to be seen whether FoxFaith can find half a dozen quality Christian films to market each year," he said. "The jury is out."

And some pastors still believe some biblical stories are better told, not shown. The Rev. Chip Stokes of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, Fla., who saw "The Nativity Story" with 18 of his parishioners, said that the film, despite being true to the gospel, was no match for the original text describing Jesus' miraculous birth.