Thomas Kinkade, the “Painter of Light,” is less an artist than a multimillion-dollar brand. And Hollywood is finally taking notice.

Shooting begins next month on a film, “The Christmas Cottage,” loosely inspired by Mr. Kinkade’s life and a painting of the same name. Lionsgate is financing production and will distribute the film, which will be released during the holiday season, Variety reported last week. And this movie is only the first project in what the production chief of Lionsgate, Michael Paseornek, said the company hopes will be a long-term relationship. “We see Thomas Kinkade as a franchise in the film business just like he is in the art world,” Mr. Paseornek said.

Mr. Kinkade is a complete outsider to the mainstream art world, as defined by museums and New York galleries, and it’s safe to say “The Christmas Cottage” won’t appeal to the same audience as artist biopics like “Pollock” and “Surviving Picasso.” But Mr. Kinkade has his own, large pool of admirers. His twee, cozy images adorn the walls of millions of American homes, as well as appearing on products like Hallmark Christmas cards and ornaments and Spode dinnerware. He manages a national franchise of galleries that sell his paintings ––or, rather, digital reproductions of them — and his work has inspired two housing developments, including a cluster of luxury lakefront homes in Coeur d’Alène, Idaho, designed to resemble his painting “Beyond Autumn Gate.”

Mr. Paseornek said that the idea was brought to Lionsgate by the film’s director and one of its producers, Michael Campus. Although Mr. Paseornek and his colleagues were familiar with Mr. Kinkade, until Mr. Campus educated them they didn’t understand how large his reach was. “I had known about his paintings, but I hadn’t realized that at retail, Thomas Kinkade is probably the most successful artist of all time,” Mr. Paseornek said. “And we like how accessible Thomas Kinkade is,” he added. “For us, it’s all about reaching an audience, and Thomas Kinkade has a vast audience.”

The CEO of Thomas Kinkade Company, Dan Byrne, said that the company had been working with Mr. Campus and his company, Birch Grove Films, for a year, “developing properties that might be appealing for Thomas Kinkade Media.”

Thomas Kinkade Media’s output also includes books, direct-to-DVD productions, like a travelogue of Mr. Kinkade’s recent trip to Israel, and, on the Web, a soon-to-be-launched Thomas Kinkade Network. The network, which Mr. Byrne said will be up in the next six months, will offer people “a whole variety of lifestyle and entertainment information, that spans from artwork to cooking, to decorating your home, to interviews with celebrities –– all within a values range that conforms to what somebody who might hang Thomas Kinkade in their homes would expect.” (Mr. Kinkade, who had a religious awakening in college, has a strong following among Christians.)

The transition from Mr. Kinkade’s other products into film was a natural one, Mr. Byrne said. “He creates these little worlds that people want to be in and part of,” he said. “They remind people of places and people they love and things they want to do and where they want to be. So it’s a very natural progression to take these stories that hang on the wall and move them out of static into moving stories.”

The film will depict Mr. Kinkade’s childhood in Placerville, Calif., a mining town with a large biker population, the screenwriter, Ken LaZebnick, said. His father, who left when Mr. Kinkade was five, was larger-than-life. “He was this guy who had vast dreams and ended up being an assistant manager at a pizza parlor in Sacramento. He took his sons on these crazy trips,” Mr. LaZebnick said, “and he was an inveterate womanizer.” Mrs. Kinkade, meanwhile, “is this incredible woman who was just totally devoted to her children.”

The plot of the film turns on Mr. Kinkade’s real-life relationship with an artist and substitute father figure named Glenn Wessels, who moved across the street from the Kinkades when Thomas was a teenager. Mr. Kinkade apprenticed for Wessels while he was in high school and learned how to paint from him.

In the film, Mr. Kinkade and his brother come home for Christmas and find that their mother is in danger of losing the family’s house to foreclosure. The elderly artist across the street, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, manages to paint one last picture, which he gives to the family, so that they can sell it and save their home.

Mr. LaZebnick said that he and Mr. Campus talk about wanting to reproduce the spirit of Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” “I would never say that we’re in that league,” he hastened to add, “but that’s the goal. And we do feel that over the last few years, there have been a number of Christmas comedies, like ‘Elf.’ But it’s been a while since there’s been a movie like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.'”

Mr. Kinkade may paint worlds of sweetness and light, but his own life and business aren’t always so wonderful. In the last year, at least 10 former owners of “signature” galleries, which are licensed to sell only Mr. Kinkade’s work, have accused Mr. Kinkade of defrauding them, using his Christianity to persuade them to invest in money-losing businesses. In August, the Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI was investigating the allegations and that former dealers had been contacted for documentation about their relationship with Mr. Kinkade. In one case, an arbitration panel ordered Mr. Kinkade’s company to pay $860,000 to two former dealers in Virginia.

The spokesman for Thomas Kinkade Company, Jim Bryant, said he was not aware of an FBI investigation. “I have not been contacted, nor has Thomas Kinkade been contacted by the FBI.” A spokesman for the FBI’s office in San Francisco could not be reached for comment.

Other charges have focused on Mr. Kinkade’s behavior. In an article in the Los Angeles Times last March, former employees and dealers described Mr. Kinkade drunkenly heckling Siefried & Roy in Las Vegas, cursing at an employee’s wife, urinating in public, and palming a woman’s breasts at a signing party. After the article appeared, Mr. Kinkade sent an email to licensed gallery owners, saying the accusations were false, but acknowledging that he had gone through a stressful period, in which he had drunk too much and gained 50 pounds.