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Catalyst,
Volume 31, Issue 3: April 2004
"THE PASSION OF THE
CHRIST" SETS NEW RECORDS
A news story in the New York Post
of July 16, 2003 began by saying, "Mel Gibson's pet
project 'The Passion' is doomed to box-office oblivion,
insiders say…." On August 3, 2003, New York
Times entertainment critic Frank Rich said,
"it's hard to imagine the movie being anything
other than a flop in America." Now all the experts
are crying in their beer.
By the end of the first weekend, Mel had
earned back the $30 million he put into the film. In its
first five days, it took in over $125 million, passing
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the
King" for the best gross by a movie opening on a
Wednesday. By the sixth day, it broke another record
when it became the highest-grossing dead-language film
ever released in the U.S. After three weekends, it had
taken in well in excess of a quarter billion dollars,
making it one of the top 25 highest-grossing movies in
history. Projections now are it will reach the $350-400
million mark.
When the movie opened on Ash Wednesday,
a group of prominent New York Catholics and Jews went to
see the movie together, and then held a press
conference. The Catholic contingent included Father
Philip Eichner, the Catholic League's chairman of the
board of directors; league president William Donohue;
Msgr. John Woolsey, pastor of St. John the Martyr in
Manhattan; and Father Paul Keenan, director for radio
ministry of the Archdiocese of New York. They were
joined by several rabbis from the New York Board of
Rabbis, including its president, Joseph Potasnik.
The press conference was huge, drawing
media from around the globe. The Catholic contingent
praised the movie, and the Jewish group criticized it,
but all shook hands when it was over.
The day the movie opened, 1,500 students from Kellenberg
Memorial High School in Uniondale, Long Island (Father
Eichner is the school's president), made a
"pilgrimage of faith" by processing three
miles to a local theater. They did so over the
objections of a Jewish woman who protested that students
carrying crosses should not be allowed to walk on a
public sidewalk in front of her synagogue.
Predictions that the movie would promote
violence have proven unfounded. The body count is zero.
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