Don't make religious movies. They make too much money.

Here is a trailer for "Bloodline". It is a new film that seems to take after the DaVinci code theory. It shows how Jesus and Mary Magdalen have a bloodline. Seriously, they actually have descendants. Watch the trailer.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/bloodline/trailer/

And here is another. Less serious, and more a "I can't believe you people take religion seriously." Mindset The smiling, polite, and slightly sarcastic Larry Charles brings us another documentary about religion in our world today. Another trailer, if you are interested.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/religulous/trailer_large.html

What I wonder is, is there really a market for these films? Somehow I'm not convinced. Bloodline made a grand total of $38,029 in the first month of release. Religulous may do better, but I cannot imagine such shallow arguments to hold up substantial box office results. But that could just be me. We'll wait and find out next fall. I can't imagine it making much more than a mere 6 or 7 million.

On the other hand, there are a handful of faith-based films that are somewhat successful. Disregarding the potential Passion fluke, films like the Mission (1986, grossing $17.2M) tend to do comparably well as well as certain other films with well-accepted religious aspects, such as "It's a Wonderful Life", "Going My Way", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Ben Hur" (won best picture '59), and "Chariots of Fire", to name a few.

True, there are plenty of religious films that don't do well, but that's because the filmmakers are not, well, filmmakers.

Here is an article I found on why Variety hates "Religious Films". Mainly it is becuse they are over-criticle, they promote God at the expense of science instead of in addition to, and they assume the watchers need converting.

Read it for yourself: Variety Hates Religious Theme of Movie Because...Well... it's Religious