TESTING THE FAITH

By KIM MASTERS/LOS ANGELES

In most ways The Preacher's Wife is as traditional a Christmas confection as fossilized fruitcake. It has a big budget, big stars and a heartwarming rendition of Joy to the World. The songs are sung by diva Whitney Houston, who plays the wife of a disillusioned minister. Her co-star, Denzel Washington, is a sexy angel who wants to save Houston's neighborhood church as well as her troubled marriage. On paper, the movie looks as if it has all the ingredients for a box-office slam dunk. But there's one thing missing: white people.

The executives who run Hollywood have long believed that white audiences stay away from black-themed movies--outside of the time-tested action genre, that is. At $60 million-plus, The Preacher's Wife is by far the costliest all-black picture ever produced, making it one of the industry's most closely watched films during this busy holiday season. Of course, even defining what a "black" film is can be tricky. Studios generally affix that label to a picture that not only has a predominantly black cast but also deals with African-American themes. Thus, for movie executives, an Eddie Murphy comedy like The Nutty Professor--a blockbuster that grossed $129 million from a diverse audience--doesn't count; Spike Lee movies do. So does Set It Off, the heist movie starring Queen Latifah that was a modest hit this fall, with grosses of $26 million, mostly from blacks.

Tom Sherak, chief of marketing at 20th Century Fox, says the industry used to assume that films drawing a largely African-American audience had a boxoffice ceiling of $40 million. Then came Fox's Waiting to Exhale, which was made for a relatively frugal $17 million and took in $65 million. But Sherak says the film didn't attract white audiences despite a hit sound-track album and the presence of Houston, who had already proved herself a box-office draw opposite Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. "We tried to sell the story of four friends, not looking at color," Sherak remembers of the Waiting to Exhale marketing campaign. "But it didn't cross over. [Whites] felt like it was made for an African-American audience."

African-American filmmakers and critics contend that white audiences would cross color lines if Hollywood had enough faith to spend more money on quality black films. Quality is a subjective term, of course, but in the case of The Preacher's Wife, many industry insiders believe Disney has demonstrated that faith. Yet even those who have seen it and liked it are concerned about the film's commercial prospects. "It's a beautiful picture," says John Krier of Exhibitor Relations, a firm that tracks box-office results. Nonetheless, he says, several theater operators are worried. "How can they convince white people to see this picture? If you had the answer, you'd be worth a lot to Disney."

Another problem for the film is that it opens this weekend opposite Jerry Maguire, a Tom Cruise vehicle. One encouraging sign for Disney is that the studio's research shows women expressing more interest in seeing Denzel and Whitney than Tom. But an executive at a rival studio argues that the research on The Preacher's Wife is skewed because the sampling was done in major cities; a closer look, he says, shows that the picture is evoking a powerful response from African Americans but far weaker interest among whites. He predicts that The Preacher's Wife will gross from $60 million to $80 million, drawing largely on black audiences. Disney says it would be happy with those numbers, but even $80 million wouldn't be enough to put the film anywhere near profitability.

Nervous exhibitors expect Disney to exploit every potential selling point to whites. But Disney acknowledges there's a limit to what it can do. After all, the company can't put up billboards that say white people, this movie's for you! What the company has done is preview the film for free, on a double bill with its 101 Dalmatians, in an effort to generate good word-of-mouth--the most effective advertising of all. Another lure for audiences is the movie's sound track. Unfortunately for Disney, the record wasn't shipped by early November as planned and arrived in stores only last week. Still not stocked in some major chains, it debuted comparatively weakly at No. 12 on the Billboard Top 200.

Disney studio chairman Joe Roth says he's betting that a family-friendly Christmas movie with two hugely popular stars, Houston's singing and Penny Marshall (Big, A League of Their Own) behind the camera will transcend color. "The biggest movies of all time have always defied conventional wisdom," he argues. Houston finds it discouraging that race is still an issue. "What's so alien about us?" she asks. "I don't understand why there's such a big thing about all-black casts. I've seen movies with all-white casts...It's a movie. Either you like it or you don't."