In a 2003 Gallup poll, 60% of Americans said religion is very important to them. The number in Canada: 28%. So what are the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed thinking self-releasing their faith-centered feature documentary here?

The film opened in the U.S. on April 13 — through a service distribution deal with Rocky Mountain Pictures — and has grossed a little over US$7.5 million to date. That would suggest it has broken the box office curse plaguing theatrical documentaries over the past year. Then again, the film opened on an astonishing 1,052 screens.

Opening today on 40 screens across Canada through a similar arrangement with Toronto-based boutique distributor KinoSmith, Expelled purports to challenge the U.S. scientific community’s resistance to the exploration of so-called ‘intelligent design.’ Host and screenwriter Ben Stein and director Nathan Frankowski line up several martyrs in the cause, academics who claim to have lost their jobs or funding because of their unorthodoxy.

The film was dismissed by The New York Times as ‘unprincipled propaganda that insults believers and nonbelievers alike.’ It was the recipient of a rare ‘zero’ review in The Globe and Mail.

Speaking from his office in Vancouver, Walt Ruloff, CEO of Premise Media Corporation and one of the film’s three executive producers, said the op-ed reaction from Canada’s national press as well as interest from the Canadian ‘faith community’ was stronger than anticipated and augers well for the box office. Although he is Canadian, Ruloff says the recently launched Premise is based in ‘L.A., Dallas and Santa Fe.’ Expelled is its first production.

‘Interest was strong in the U.S. faith community, but it seems the faith community here heard the buzz through the grapevine from the U.S.’ Ruloff says the film also performed well in unexpected places in the U.S., including traditional liberal strongholds such as San Francisco. ‘Canada is more like San Francisco on the whole. We’re much more secular, so it will be interesting to see how it works.’

Ruloff says the film is one of the most expensive documentaries ever made but declines to reveal the precise figure beyond ‘multimillion.’ Nor will he identify the backers or indicate if there is any ‘faith community’ involvement. ‘The financing comes from a combination of American and Canadian investors, investors looking for a return.’

If there is a return, it will come with the U.S. DVD release on Oct. 21. This time there is a distributor: Vivendi Entertainment. No Canadian DVD distributor is attached.