Posted on: Saturday, March 19, 2005
Sanitized 'Passion' bombs at box office
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer
The "Passion" is gone.
Advertiser library photo • April 4, 2002 Showing at 957 theaters nationally, that averages out to just $250 per theater for the weekend. And if the weekend held four screenings each day over three days, that's a measly average of $20 per screening.
Consolidated theaters did not release local box office figures.
"We certainly had higher expectations than we got," said Rob Schwartz, head of distribution for Newmarket Films, which released "The Passion of the Christ" and its new cut. "We were trying to get the film out there, hoping it would reach an audience that it didn't reach the first time around. It doesn't seem to have worked out quite as well as we hoped."
Here in Hawai'i, "Passion Recut" opened on eight screens at seven theaters on March 11. The ad included this quote from Gibson: "By softening some of its more wrenching aspects, I hope to make my film and its message of love available to a wider audience."
The wider audience failed to materialize and Consolidated dropped all screenings for this weekend, which includes Palm Sunday.
However, some churches still have a bit of "Passion of the Christ" in them. One new 'Ewa Beach area church, Abundant Life Christian Fellowship, is planning a private showing of the original on Friday. And Central Union is offering a screening of the original "Passion" as part of an expanded Maundy Thursday service.
There, the historic United Church of Christ church will show the movie at its parish hall will be preceded by choral music and prayer, and stopped at the appropriate time to offer communion to worshippers during the Last Supper scene.
And in the 'Ewa Beach area, Abundant Life's pastor, Jerrel Tate, said he is inaugurating his nondenominational Christian church with both the message of the movie as well as the medium, hoping that a screening at the church will help introduce the community to the congregation and vice versa.
"This gives us a chance to meet people with a free show," said Tate, who saw the original "Passion" last year in theaters.
Tate said childcare will be available, since the film is not appropriate for children.
Tate did not seem surprised the movie didn't do well in re-release.
"It could be because we all went out to see it the first time," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
With a dismal showing at theaters last weekend, "The Passion Recut," Mel Gibson's toned-down story of the last days of Christ, took in just $239,850 in ticket sales nationwide and was yanked from local theaters.
The original version of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," too gory for some, was a box-office hit.
