Disney has reportedly hired several Christian marketing groups to hype the film — a head-turning irony in a world where the secular regularly clashes with the sacred and vice versa. In recent years, evangelical Christians sponsored a full-blown boycott of Disney and its theme parks after the company began making edgy films that many said undercut family values and offering "gay days" at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

One marketing tool, found at www.narniaresources.com, offers a link to "buy tickets for your entire church or group." It also is seeking "Ambassadors of Narnia," who are willing to sign on to help promote the film in their local area.

The Barna Group, an evangelical polling and research site, is offering tickets for special Dec. 8 "preview screenings" on its web site at www.barna.org.

But the marketing isn't limited to evangelicals. Catholic Outreach has created a web site specifically geared toward using the film as a teaching and outreach tool. It describes the film as "a grand-scale, live-action movie that features the grandeur of 'Lord of the Rings' with the fantasy and virtue of 'The Wizard of Oz.' A classic story of 'good versus evil,' Narnia is a movie that will be loved and seen by millions."

Its Web site at www.narniaoutreach.com was created as a "resource center for parishes, schools, groups who want to use the film as a faith-formation opportunity."

The film is based on the first of a seven-book series, "The Chronicles of Narnia," by scholar and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, and is considered among his most beloved works. The book is a symbolic re-telling of the Christ story using imagery that children can understand.

It tells the tale of four children who accidentally enter Narnia through a magic wardrobe and encounter a lion named Aslan (a Christ figure) who redeems Narnia by breaking the power of the evil White Witch who has made it "always winter ... but ... never Christmas."

Some religious leaders are lauding the film publicly before it hits the big screen.

Two were quoted recently in The Observer, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, that they see it as an evangelistic tool.

"We believe that God will speak the gospel of Jesus Christ through this film,' said Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Centre at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the film is an ideal way for a Christian message to be brought to people who wouldn't otherwise darken the door of a church. "Here is yet another tool that many may find to be effective in communicating the message of Jesus to those who may not respond to other presentations," he said.

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com