Posted on 04/09/2004 8:45:10 AM PDT by missyme
A group from Antioch Bible Church in Redmond plans to celebrate Good Friday at a movie theater tonight, watching Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."
The e-mail invitation reads that the outing is "to help us stay in focus and to keep it all in perspective."
Joe Meek, a church member who will not attend tonight's screening but plans to watch the movie for the third time this weekend, said it's an appropriate way to celebrate what Easter is about for Christians.
"It truly comes as close to depicting what actually happened to our Lord as any film that has addressed that," said Meek, director of the church's dance and drama ministries and administrator for its worship arts ministry. "So 'The Passion' is a marvelous way of commemorating that outside of church worship."
Films that start out big in the marketplace usually see their circulation shrink within a few weeks, but that's not the case with "The Passion of the Christ."
In anticipation of the Easter season, Gibson's film about the last 12 hours in Jesus Christ's life expanded again last week by 194 venues to 3,408 theaters nationwide. That theater count will make "Passion" the most widely circulated film in the marketplace.
As of yesterday, according to the online movie-ticketing site Fandango, "The Passion" accounted for 31 percent of advance ticket sales for the week — up from 13 percent last week. Up until a couple of weeks ago, it had been the No. 1 movie every week since advance tickets were made available, and "The Passion" is back at the top spot this week.
While many films start out in a smaller number of theaters — 1,000 to 2,000 — and work their way up, "The Passion" made its debut on a high venue count of 3,043. When a film starts at that level, there's usually nowhere to go but down.
"I think it's a smart move," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office watcher Exhibitor Relations. "They're anticipating increased demand, so they're making it more available."
"The Passion" has proved to be an atypical film. With $330 million in gross receipts thus far, it has moved into the top 10 in all-time domestic box-office receipts, just moving ahead of "Forrest Gump." It was the top film its first three weeks in theaters, second in its fourth week and a close third last weekend. On Wednesday, when it opened in Rome, it broke all records for a first-night showing in Italy, according to its distributor.
The $30 million-budgeted "Passion" was produced and financed by Gibson's Icon Productions and distributed by independent Newmarket Films. It is by far the most successful independently released film and the best-performing "R"-rated film ever in the U.S.
"I'm not prepared to say it'll be No. 1 on Easter weekend, but you never know," Dergarabedian said.
It will be competing with Disney's $95 million film, "The Alamo," being released today, along with Warner's "The Whole Ten Yards," a sequel to 2000's "The Whole Nine Yards."
Material from Knight Ridder Newspapers, Reuters, and Times staff reporter Young Chang is included in this report.
Worldwide Gross: #46 $442.8M (337.8 domestic, 105.0 international)
Domestic Gross: #10 337.8M
Domestic Gross (inflation adjusted) #60
Domestic R Rating: #1
Were you at the theater Friday? My wife and I plan to go on Saturday. Wonder how crowded it might be.
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