The buzz about films at ICRS took center stage at ICRS in Orlando, as retailers were urged by film companies and distributors to promote movies in their stores, encourage customers to see films during their opening day or weekend and to watch for new releases heading their way. Retailers, vendors, authors and filmmakers attended screenings, workshops, roundtable sessions and DVD release presentations throughout this week's International Christian Retail Show.

At Tuesday’s Film Product Trends Workshop, Propeller’s Bob Elder told retailers to look for films to appear in theaters as special events for one night or a few nights only, like 2015’s The Drop Box and Four Blood Moons.

“There’s a lot of inventory [seats] available in theaters Monday through Thursdays where smaller, quality films can be shown,” Elder explained.

He said the number of faith-based films continues to increase each year, as big-name studios look for box-office dollars from the 225 million self-proclaimed Christians in the U.S.

“This is not a niche market or a little sideline business,” said Rich Peluso, senior vice president of Sony’s Affirm Films. “In the last two years, 30 faith-based films released theatrically.”

Retailers will want to look for big movies in 2016, such as the biblical epic Risen in January, followed by an April release of Pure Flix’s God’s Not Dead 2, plus Caged No More, The Shack, Same Kind of Different as Me and more, all coming to theaters next year.

Stores can pick up sales by promoting theatrical releases, then carrying the future DVD and Blu-ray. New DVDs out this fall include the Roma Downey and Mark Burnett television series A.D.: The Bible Continues on Nov. 3, Hallmark Channel’s Where Hope Grows, International Christian Visual Media 2015 Best Picture Award-winner Old Fashioned, Beyond the Mask, Do You Believe? and another Downey/Burnett production Little Boy. Also coming on DVD is the award-winning documentary Patterns of Evidence on Aug. 4, new preschool series “Owlegories” and Phil Vischer’s first character-driven CGI series since VeggieTales, "Galaxy Buck."

At a Tuesday evening Film Roundtable discussion at ICRS, filmmakers gathered around tables with authors, media, marketers and retailers to answer the film-related questions designated for each table and come up with creative solutions such as how to handle controversial content. Elder led the interactive event.

“It’s really exciting to see all these films that are coming to market,” Elder said.