Pastors Encouraged To Send Parishioners To The Box Office

Philadelphia Inquirer: Attention, pastors: You have just four weeks remaining to work a lion, a witch or a wardrobe into your next sermon.
Walt Disney Pictures is so eager for churches to turn out audiences for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which opens Friday, that it’s offering a free trip to London – and $1,000 cash – to the winner of its big promotional sermon contest.
The only catch is that the sermons must mention Narnia, based on the hugely popular children’s books about four British children who walk through an uncle’s magic armoire into an enchanted kingdom.
Hollywood has been doing this sort of thing since The Ten Commandments in 1956, when Cecil B. DeMille had study guides sent to schools.
With Narnia, producers have an epic that works both as religious allegory and secular fantasy.
The question is whether Narnia can capture both audiences – combining the box-office power of The Lord of the Rings with The Passion of the Christ.
[via Adfreak]
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