A few weeks ago, producer Matthew Crouch rang up his financial angel, the man who helped him raise money to make his first film. Crouch had gotten comments from viewers at a preview screening and wanted to go over some changes.
It was a short call. "Listen, bud, I'm dealing with some other stuff here," the benefactor said. "You just deal with it. I've got to go." Click.
Another young producer might have been discouraged by such a brushoff. But one senses that Crouch easily forgave his father, the controversial televangelist Paul Crouch. The father-and-son team are behind "The Omega Code," set to open Oct. 15, which marks a rare foray into theatrical films for Costa Mesa-based Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world's largest Christian television network.
Paul Crouch, 65, founder and president of TBN, is credited as executive producer on the film. TBN put up part of the $8.5-million production budget and is kicking in free advertising worth at least $3 million. In return, the privately held network gets a large chunk of the theatrical rentals.
TBN is even broadcasting appeals to faithful viewers--who fork over an estimated $80 million in solicited donations to the network each year--to volunteer for promotional work.
It's hardly a typical Hollywood arrangement, but then TBN--famous in religious and broadcasting circles for its unorthodox methods--has always marched to its own drummer. In making and releasing "The Omega Code," the network has avoided the major studios or specialty distributors that would typically play a role in a picture this size.
Matthew Crouch, not surprisingly, is optimistic about the film's chances in the market. For the last seven years, he's run a post-production facility in a working-class neighborhood in Echo Park while trying to start a career as a movie producer. A slight man in his mid-30s with a reedy tenor, he appeared for an interview wearing a Nike sweatshirt and baggy black gym shorts and spoke excitedly of marketing and demographics. He looked and sounded more like a vacationing ad exec than the son of a charismatic televangelist.
Crouch hedges when asked if "The Omega Code" is a religious film, but clearly he's aiming primarily for a core audience of evangelical Christians, who according to religion experts number roughly 75 million in the U.S. Stephan Blinn's script is about an evil genius (played by Michael York, most recently of "Austin Powers" fame), who conspires to rule the world using the Bible code, a mathematical pattern that supposedly runs throughout the Scriptures and allows users to predict major events.
