On a script and a prayer: Sex and violence aren't the only ways to sell a movie. Peter and Paul Lalonde are making money on flicks with Christian themes.

Watching Dick Clark on TV is how most revelers in the U.S. spend New Year's Eve, which is why Hollywood is intrigued that on Dec. 31, 250,000 people gathered in hundreds of theaters and churches to take in an alternative, the movie Left Behind II: Tribulation Force. The action-packed tale of nonbelievers finding religion is the eighth Christian flick created by Peter Lalonde and his brother Paul. They head Cloud Ten Pictures, a maker of direct-to-video …

…an unsatisfied, primarily Christian market out there," says Michael Dunn, executive vice president of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. "If you can marry the right product to that marketplace, everyone's going to benefit." A-men, says Lalonde, who is taking meetings at big studios and talking of selling a 51% stake in Cloud Ten. Says he: "While there's a separation of church and state, I don't think there needs to be a separation of church and entertainment."