How Sony Courted Christians

The Wall Street Journal reports about the triumph of a low budget movie:

How does a movie that features a jailed priest, a young girl's convulsions, and a martini-swilling lawyer become a hit among churchgoers?

That's the question some Hollywood executives are mulling as they watch the blossoming box-office receipts for "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" from Sony Corp.'s Screen Gems label. Based on the true story of a young German girl who died in the 1970s after undergoing numerous Catholic exorcisms, the picture raked in a surprising $30 million at the U.S. box office this past weekend -- soundly beating movie-industry expectations and making it the most successful opening of a small-budget film so far this year.