Will Hollywood get religion?

Act One, now in its second year with a $300,000 budget from the Roman Catholic church, opened its doors in Los Angeles two years ago. A New York office launched this past month.

"We want art that will not be cynical," says Ms. Nicolosi, the Act One director who points to films such as "October Sky," as an example of good filmmaking. "The problem is when people don't have God in their framework, the only thing they are sure of is the darkness. They tend to obsess about anger and fear.

"But, when you add God, then hope is stronger, and you can add the darkness, but it will never be stronger" than hope.

Studios have expressed interest in the work of those she teaches, but even so, she says, it's not easy for anyone in Hollywood to know exactly what audiences will buy.

"We're trying day by day to figure out what our students need to equip them better," she says.

Meanwhile, Christian musicians have to counter the bad-boy image of rock. "For us, being Christians and being musicians, it's not as big a contradiction as people think," says Jeff Frankenstein, drummer for the Christian rock group the Newsboys. "The whole traditional image of being a bad boy is one thing. But what could be more rebellious than being a Christian and a musician?

"Look at the life of Jesus - that's way more outrageous."

The Newsboys headlined this past summer's 30-city, 10-group rock tour called "Festival Con Dios," what was dubbed the first-ever "Christian Lollapalooza," after the alternative rock festival.

While religion has inspired artists for centuries, it has been largely banished from today's popular entertainment, says Robert Thompson, director of the center for the study of popular television at Syracuse University. This, he says, parallels the rise of mass culture.

"For so long in the mainstream entertainment, there was this idea that you had to appeal to mass audience," Mr. Thompson says. "People were uncomfortable with religious themes. You could talk about anything but religion or politics if you were going after a mass audience because you didn't want to offend anyone."

The splintering of the mass market into many cable and satellite channels has opened the door to more targeted entertainment, he says.

"We haven't seen such raw forms of entertainment in a long time, he says. The reception for Christian music and films from mainstream critics has been largely neutral or negative. But that doesn't mean they aren't making an impact.

"These things are a meaningful barometer of the place and manifestation of religion in a kind of dialogue with the rest of culture," says David Sterritt, long-time film critic of the Monitor. "I'm not sure if anyone should care about these movies themselves. But they ought to care if those [large] numbers of people are going to see them."

Historically, says Michael York, who plays the devil in "Megiddo: Omega Code 2," Lucifer has always been the best role for an actor.

"The devil hogs all the bedclothes, so to speak," says Mr. York, who has played biblical roles before, notably John the Baptist in Franco Zeffirelli's "Jesus of Nazareth." Despite their religious iconography, says the British actor, who calls himself "vaguely spiritual," "I'd hoped that these [Omega Code] films had an ambiguity about them, a double level, so they didn't seem to be entirely religious propaganda."

He says he understands that comments suggesting "Megiddo" was the work of God framed it as a sort of religious agitprop. But he says Western culture also cannot escape its own legacies.

"If you're brought up in a Judeo-Christian culture, it's impossible not to deal with these films," he says. "They're the source of your parables, all your metaphors."

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