Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome your American Taliban

A few IMAX theaters in the south have decided not to show Volcanoes, which suggests that life on earth may have evolved from extremophile organisms able to survive in volcanic steam plumes.

"A number of theaters said, `We're not taking the film literally for fear of the reaction of the audience," said Richard Lutz, a Rutgers University oceanographer who was chief scientist for "Volcanoes."

Stephen Low, the film's producer-director, said 10 to 15 huge-screen IMAX theaters decided against showing "Volcanoes." While that is a seemingly small number, it represents about 20 percent of the potential market among IMAX cinemas that cater to scientific documentaries, he said.

"Volcanoes" has been on the IMAX circuit since 2003, playing in about 35 theaters.

Science centers in a few Southern communities opted not to show "Volcanoes" after test audiences objected to its theories that life may have evolved from bacteria able to live in the water around super-hot vents of deep-sea volcanoes.

"We have definitely a lot more creation public than evolution public," Lisa Buzzelli, who heads the Charleston IMAX theater in South Carolina, told The New York Times last week. The theater had not ruled out ever showing the movie, "but being in the Bible Belt, the movie does have a lot do with evolution, and we weigh that carefully."

But if you live in Charleston, don't fret. I'm sure that the IMAX version of The Passion of the Christ will be extra-bloody on the big screen for all of the Jesus Christ snuff film cognoscenti.