The U.N. is also featured as a body of evil in the bestselling end-of-days book series Left Behind, in which a U.N.-like organization is the front for operations of the anti-Christ.

Horowitz himself doesn't believe in this extreme view and dismisses it as "kooky." But faith-based outreach and marketing has recently proved to be a successful way to stand out in a saturated and struggling film market.  

The self-funded Passion of the Christ brought in $611 million worldwide and counting, in part thanks to Christian groups such as Campus Crusade and Focus on the Family sponsoring screenings. Religious websites like ShareTheLife.com and TheLife.com heavily promoted and discussed it, and called on Christians to do so too.

Kirk Cameron's movie about faith and marriage, Fireproof, produced in conjunction with a Baptist church in Georgia for $500,000, grossed more than $30 million since its September 26 release. Its pre-sale tickets on Fandango beat out the opening of Shia LaBeouf's $80 million thriller Eagle Eye. Last summer's pro-life independent feature Bella, made for $3.3 million, earned over $9.5 million. Facing The Giants, the story of a football coach whose faith is tested, produced for $100,000 has grossed over $10 million.

Horowitz expects U.N. Me to gross $10 million to $15 million. One challenge is that the market for documentaries is tiny. (They account for 1 percent of U.S. box office revenues.) Moore's movies Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko have grossed a combined $316 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. But more the norm is the 2007 Oscar-winner Taxi to the Dark Side, which was produced for $1 million and made just $275,000.

And Horowitz's marketing strategy is drawing concern from people who originally cooperated with the film.

"I don't think inflaming the Christian Right is the best way to bring about reform, unless he's trying to take [the U.N.] down," says Jody Williams, a former U.N. aid worker and 1997 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in landmine causes, who is featured in the film. "It's going to peg the film as an evangelical film and it's not. He could shoot himself in the foot. A lot of people do agree with him. Christ, I’m on the left. I think he
should find people on all walks of life who support him because they do."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of years Horowitz was employed by Lehman Brothers.