Popularity was not what the Passion of the Christ was all about. It was a film brimming with creative inspiration and intelligence. But because it was a film about faith and the theological significance of the sufferings of Jesus, it was shut out of the Academy Awards. I doubt most of the industry's leading lights even bothered to see the film. An implacable wall of hostility instead has opposed this movie. It opposed Gibson long before the film ever started production and was the culmination of a long Hollywood grudge against Christianity itself. It's silly to even try to deny this. It had done all it could to try to keep this film from ever being made.
In fact the industry did more than refuse to finance Gibson's venture. It tried to shut it down by means of threats and bad publicity. And when the film was finished, it would not even distribute it--though the market was obviously out there waiting to be served. In fact, so ideologically hostile has Hollywood's left been to anything Christian, that it has gone out of its way for decades to gratuitously insult and ridicule the Christian faith in film after film after film. And because Gibson defied this taboo, he aroused Hollywood's ire, though the film has broken box office records.
The truth is, The Passion of the Christ is a serious film, a thought-provoking film, a film with superb cinematography, a well-acted film, a beautifully directed film, a unique film, a film that is a smash hit, a film that evokes powerful emotions among countless millions, a film that had proven to be a true phenomenon, in fact--yet it was not even nominated. It lost out to lightweights like Million Dollar Baby and Sideways and The Aviator. Jim Caviezel, whose interpretation was universally praised for his powerful performance, was likewise not even nominated, though no actor in the history of cinema had ever been more convincing in such a difficult role. What does this tell us about Hollywood?
"It's silly to even try to deny this."
Nowhere have I denied this, nor the fact that Hollywood sucks.
"What does this tell us about Hollywood? "
That you & I both know they suck and are in agreement on this point?
What kind of creativity did the POTC exhibit? All Gibson did was take a passage from the Bible and put it on the screen.