Mel Gibson's 'Passion' ascends to blockbuster status $117.5 million

Boston Globe ^ | March 1, 2004 | David Germain, AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

LOS ANGELES (AP) Mel Gibson's gamble on ''The Passion of the Christ'' paid off enormously, riding a storm of religious debate to a $117.5 million haul in its first five days, according to studio estimates Sunday.

''The Passion,'' which debuted on Ash Wednesday, rocketed to the No. 1 box-office slot for the weekend with $76.2 million from Friday to Sunday.

[HiTech RedNeck]

There is a palpable anti-Christian agenda in Hollywood. I saw Dennis Miller interview Michael Douglas last night - he was ripping it and Mel a new one.

They just can't UNDERSTAND.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

VERY funny. That would make a terrific graphic! A great editorial cartoon!

[Aquinasfan]

Once considered a niche film that would appeal mainly to conservative Christians...

LOL! Life is good. Thank you Jesus!

[ctonious]

Gibson's movie production company is to Hollywood, as talk radio is to lamestream media. May there be many more....

[CharacterCounts]

The figure would be much higher, if everyone who wanted to get in could have.

I went with my family. I arrived more than 1/2 hour before the first showing. The movie sold out for the that showing and the next two showings. I will try again mid-week.

[Aquinasfan]

This will give more people the courage to speak out and tune out "popular culture."

Yes. The problem is that we've been constantly fighting an oppositional battle, constantly struggling to hold back the tide, instead of offering up a creative vision of our own.

With the Lord of the Rings trilogy and "The Passion of the Christ," the counter-counterculture is here. Now they are on the defensive. The battle has just begun.

[TXBSAFH]

Amazing what happens when you make a true great movie that does not run down traditional values.

[lsucat]

I saw it yesterday as well. The scene you spoke about had all of us sobbing. The film was a wonderful portrait of Mary and presented Jesus in a way I've never seen in a movie. He was so human. It was an amazing movie. I'm still digesting the whole thing.

[joesnuffy]

Mel Gibson: Hollywood's 'Frankenstein's Monster'

Posted: March 1, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

"The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had
friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone"

– Frankenstein's monster, in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly's "Frankenstein"

Step aside, big fella, because Hollywood has created it's own monster. He's also
going it alone, but, unlike Frankenstein's monster, not lamenting that fact.

The wealthy, talented beast that learned his craft and gained a vast fortune from
the Left Coast masters has turned on them, and his name is Mel Gibson. From
Tinseltown power brokers all the way down to the rank-and-file casting-couch
slimeballs, many cogs in Hollywood's "our way or the highway" bureaucracy
machine are furious at Gibson. He took the millions their industry has paid him
over the years, went off on his own, and made a movie about – gulp – Jesus
Christ. In a town that gave "Gigli" the green light, you'd think they'd have better
things to get their skivvies in a twist over.

With Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," Hollywood's rogue son has proven
that the usual industry magnates don't need to be "in the loop" to create a great
film, and now they're faced with the challenge of preventing others from following
Gibson's lead. This is why they've tried – and failed – to make an "example" of him.

Gibson worked for years at making financially successful films for major
Hollywood movie studios. He was well paid for his efforts – perhaps paid too well.
He ended up personally financing his "Passion" to the tune of $25 million, which is
approximately $25 million more than most actors are willing to sink into their
"passion."

Directly behind Hollywood's facade of "love of craft" and "giving something back"
lays a straight forward and thuggish union mentality bathing in fountains of
money, ready to verbally bash in skulls if any of their ilk display the slightest "scab"
tendencies. Like dealing with the mob, don't think for a second you're about to
take their money and then just walk away from "the family."

In Hollywood, in spite of what they will tell you, the controversy over "The
Passion of the Christ" has nothing to do with a fair representation of the final
hours of the Savior. An industry that has, in part, spent the last half of the 20th
century and most of the new millennium showing people getting their heads blown
off, fornicating, using drugs and bashing Christianity is now gravely concerned
about tarnishing the image of Jesus Christ? Either they're being reborn right before
our eyes, or somebody got the drop on them. You decide.

In Hollywood, people like Gibson, who run off on their own, are viewed no
differently than a Teamster-trained driver who abandoned his union affiliation and
ran off to start his own trucking company. That driver will once again be
encouraged to look for the union label, and emergency room doctors may help him
find it – lodged in his sphincter, along with a loafer and dues envelope.

The anger of mainstream Hollywood powerbrokers directed against "The Passion"
could also have a not-so-subliminal side effect on other independent filmmakers.

There are now more movie awards shows than there are movies – which makes
them woefully repetitive – but most of them traditionally take time to recognize
movies made by independent filmmakers. Hollywood does it as a charity of sorts,
since they know that more people viewed Jack Nicholson's latest colonoscopy than
saw "Liana Dognini."

With a few commercially successful exceptions, "recognition of independent films"
has traditionally been Hollywood's version of handicapped parking. Now, with
Gibson's independent film raking in the cash and garnering all the attention, soon
the Academy of Arts and Sciences and others may begin to feel that they're
offering spots closer to the door to people who are in better condition than they
are.

Many have panned "The Passion of the Christ," including those who run
Hollywood. They have called the film inaccurate and anti-Semitic, and Gibson's
been called a wacko and a kook. All the hateful names and false accusations are
attempts to put band-aids over the wounds that are the real reason for their
lament: insane jealousy.

If only they would emulate Gibson's accomplishment. Of course, that would require
more talent, courage of conviction and, most frighteningly of all, risking their own
money. The Hollywood left would much rather maintain a status quo of
culture-degrading movies laced with expletives, sex, drugs and violence than to
take a chance on something like Mel Gibson has done, and risk offending a
colleague.

[FITZ]

where a spate of firebombings of synagogues and Jewish schools and attacks on rabbis over the last year has led Israel to denounce it as the most anti-Semitic country in Europe.

None of that has anything to do with Christians, Jesus, or the Passion.

[reagan_fanatic]

I've already seen the film once with my wife and two kids, and I plan on going again tonight with my Mother and two Sisters.

May God bless you for the courage to stick your neck out like you did, Mel. This is only the beginning. I believe this could be the start of a new awakening here in America and across the World.

And all thanks to you, Jesus, for your ultimate sacrifice 2000 years ago.

[savedbygrace]

The anti-Semitism in France isn't coming from faux Christians, but from Muslims. Even the Neonazis don't try to pass themselves off as Christians.

The newspaper Liberation described Gibson's faith as "a Shiite version of Christianity

Ironically, this statement might stir up more violence from Muslims than Gibson's film ever will.

[philosofy123]

From your mouth to God's ears.

I went to the movie on Saturday afternoon. It was half empty. I asked several Christian ladies if they wanted to go to the movie too, they all said no, it is too violent. Now that tells you how very few Americans in Hollywood are able to SUBGIGATE the millions of STUPID Americans. Mind you, I live in the so called bible belt.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

From your LINK:

*** With Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," Hollywood's rogue son has proven that the usual industry magnates don't need to be "in the loop" to create a great film, and now they're faced with the challenge of preventing others from following Gibson's lead. This is why they've tried – and failed – to make an "example" of him.***

Bump!!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A LINK to the Doug Powers piece: Mel Gibson: Hollywood's 'Frankenstein's Monster'

[SamAdams76]

Some of the liberals around here (Massachusetts) were chortling that Mel Gibson was going to lose his shirt on this movie in the days before it came out. They were actually predicting empty theaters and more people outside protesting the movie (why?) than actual movie-goers.

Boy, were they wrong.

Even here in "Kennedy Country", the lines to see this movie are phenomenal. My wife and I were going to go but we are going to have to wait until next weekend...at least.

I think the mistake that the "critics" made was that they did not realize that there are millions of Americans out there who don't normally go to the movie theater but would go to see this film. Evidently, the critics did not account for all these people coming out of the woodwork. I read stories this weekend about elderly people who would walk around these multiplex cinemas looking for the ticket window. It had been so long since these folks had been to a theater that they did not realize that the ticket booths are now indoors!

There is another undercurrent at work here, people are so sickened with our perverse culture that when a movie like this comes out, they want to go to it so that they can encourage more movies like this to be made. I think there is a real backlash against immorality such as the recent controversy over gay marriages and people like Rosanna O'Donnell "taking brides" and such. People are sickened to see lesbians like Madonna and Brittany Spears french-kissing on television as if it was something to be proud of.

So then this movie comes along and people just want to support it and make it the blockbuster that it is as sort of a "screw you" to all those Hollywood types who would prefer that we wallow in the filth that they have been putting out, not only in the movies but on TV and in music as well. Many of us are fed up.

Between my wife and our oldest son, we are going to purchase at least 9 tickets to this movie between us. My wife's church is going to the film next weekend and we purchased tickets even though we are probably going to end up going ourselves at a different time. Then we will see it again on Easter weekend (if we can get in - I'm sure the theaters will be packed again that weekend). Then we are going to buy the DVD.

Yes, this movie is going to gross a billion before all is said and done. Mel Gibson can take that to the bank.

[RinaseaofDs]

Right, and that was all part of the deal, that they wouldn't understand.

MOST would not understand.

That's what is so interesting on the Christian side of this coin - Christ's death was a fulfillment of prophesy. It was the conclusion of a new deal between God and His people.

It's part of the plan. That Michael Douglas and his ilk don't get it is part of the plan.

When the rapture happens, they still won't get it, and when the two witnesses appear, preaching the salvation of Christ, working miracles in the street, they still won't get it.

They won't get it until Christ stands on Zion. Then 'every knee shall bend. . .'

[af_vet_rr]

This is good, I hope this is an encouragement to make more movies along these lines (which he has indicated he wants to). It certainly will help finance them.

[Ryan Bailey]

The place of Mel Gibson's latest picture, The Passion, has now been settled forever by the viewing public, in a democratic fashion voting with their wallets despite all the best efforts of the Jewish Hollywood establishment to block it's release and slander it's producer.

How ironic it is that the last line of defense utilized by the anti-Christian faction to derail the success of this movie, and still to be used in the future, is that it's "too violent".

It should come as no surprise that when Quentin Tarantino or Sofia Coppola release a picture that makes most people nauseous, it's invariably labeled as high art under the auspices of free speech. But when a Catholic producer releases a historical drama on the death of Christ, drawn completely from verified corroborated historical documents, with violent subjects, it is immediately labeled as unviewable.

Irregardless of these diverse efforts on the part of Satan's Army The Gospel Story is still "The Greatest Story Ever Told".

[T.Smith]

"This is good, I hope this is an encouragement to make more movies along these lines (which he has indicated he wants to). It certainly will help finance them."

I absolutely hope that Mel makes a "prequel". I would love to see the same treatment given to Jesus' ministry before the crucifixion. I am ready to commit to seeing it at least twice and buying the DVD! Just think, a film about his entire ministry on Earth would be something that parents would be willing to take their kids to see. That means hundreds of thousands more tickets sold!