The Mormon movie movement is thinking too small, according to LDS filmmaker Mitch Davis, whose film "The Other Side of Heaven" is one of the few to break into the worldwide market.

And as Davis sees it, marketing ... or a lack thereof ... is the primary problem.

" 'Saints and Soldiers' crossed over to everybody who saw it," Davis said. "Exit polls show that 'The Other Side of Heaven' crossed over to everyone who saw it — but they were not seen by significant numbers of non-LDS audiences."

It would also help if "name" actors could be employed to help get past the perception by the outside world that these films are preachy.

"Our defenses are up for an infomercial," Davis said by phone from his home in San Diego," as opposed to our defenses being down for a Tom Cruise movie that will instruct me, edify me, teach me. Was it (filmmaker Frank) Capra who said, 'Only the morally courageous should be allowed to speak to their fellowmen for two hours in the dark'?

"We need to put our money where our mouth is. It's one thing to stand on the sidelines and moan and groan about pop culture, but it's another thing to get out your checkbook and make a movie and send it across the globe and see what happens."

The interview was to publicize "The Other Side of Heaven" having its U.S. television debut next Wednesday on the Starz! cable channel. The film will also pop up on the Showtime channel in January.

Davis said that "Heaven" has been shown on TV networks around the world over the past year. "It still has some life left; there are a few territories we're still negotiating with."

Until the $8 million "Work and the Glory" came along, "Heaven" was, at $7 million, the most expensive Mormon movie. And it has not yet made back its money. "We have quite a ways to go, and our greatest potential for our investors is continued video and DVD sales. We're hopeful that Starz might help with that.

"The good news is that people continue to buy it."

"The Other Side of Heaven" is based on the true story of a young LDS missionary in 1950s Tonga. (That missionary, John H. Groberg, is now a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)

Davis' next film, which is not Mormon-themed, is his original script, "Mount of Olives," a romance between a Jewish man and a Palestinian woman. (Next March he starts filming in Israel, and he hopes to have Joseph Fiennes and F. Murray Abraham in key roles.)

He said he's open to another LDS movie down the road, however. "I'd love to. I would need to find the right story, the right cast. I've got a few ideas rattling around."

Davis said LDS films need to appeal to audiences outside the LDS market, but they also need more support from inside. "I think the audience has gotten a little tired of ultra-low-budget Mormon movies, and I think they're beginning to suffer at the box office. And yet the audience hasn't yet demonstrated willingness to support higher-budgeted films.